Tra'Akaan
by MandalorianScum
Summary: A story of Mandalorian mercenaries as they travel the galaxy in search of credits and the answers they seek.
1. Legacy

_**TRA'AKAAN**_

_**I do not own any existing Star Wars characters, locations, or any other aspects of the universe or franchise. I also seek no profit for my writings.**_

_**Character Descriptions**_

**Kavan Tri-** Mandalorian Adult Human Male, Average build. Dark Red Armor

**Syina Tri-** Mandalorian Adult Human Female

**Banan Corsus-** Mandalorian Adult Human Male, Gray Armor

**Balistik Tri- **Newborn/Mandalorian Adult Human Male, Predominantly Black and Gray Armor

**Aleena-** Mandalorian Adult Twi'lek Female, Predominantly Black and Gray Armor

**Feras Oset-** Mandalorian Adult Human Male, Predominantly Black and Gray Armor

**Vex-** Mandalorian Adult Trandoshan Male, Predominantly Black and Gray Armor

**Ty Vandel-** Mandalorian Adult Human Male, Predominantly Black and Gray Armor

**Natalie Corsus-** Adult Human Female

**Others-** Mandalorian soldiers of the Outer-Rim Clan Alliance, a force of 10,000 of joined Mandalorian clans working as a small army in the Outer Rim and unaffiliated systems to fight as an army for endangered planets and governments. (Big enough to get stuff done, but small enough to not be considered a threat towards Republic efforts)

_**Story Intro**_

The OCA is waging war against rebellion forces currently attempting to take the Avanseni city of Baloen. A desert planet covered with a dark black sand, riddled with massive cities made up dark stone and metal. The story starts with a Mandalorian shock trooper named Kavan, he was leading his team against the rebels when he heard the news of his wife going into labor. Due to their medical frigate taking heavy damage during the initial orbital entry, he was forced to go against the invasion leader Commander Shru's wishes and take his wife and a handful of his men to a facility near the frontlines in order to safely deliver the child.

_**LEGACY**_

_**Kavan Tri**_

_**Capital City of Baloen**_

_**Municipal Medical Center**_

"Kavan..h...he's beautiful." Kavan looked into his wife Syina's eyes, glistening with maternal love and hope as she held their newly born son.

Kavan smiled, and reached to lift up his son, looking over his every feature. He looked a lot like himself when he was a baby, aside from having Synia's eyes. "All thanks to you I'm afraid, I've been known to be compared to a Hutt's backside.

She laughed into a small cough. "They mean you act like a Hutt's backside, love.

And they're usually right."

Kavan laughed as he rocked his son back and forth, feeling the warmth of the baby's body through his flight suit.

The baby reached up and felt at his beard.

Finally he had an heir to his father's legacy, to his legacy. They had tried... and failed so many times to have a child. And had almost given up hope.

How could such a little thing soften his heart so much, especially since they had only just met...it honestly scared him.

He looked over at Syina. It didn't surprise him that something this amazing came from his beautiful wife. With her long blonde hair, her warm smile, and her defiant brow. The only things that truly mattered to him were right here in this room. He only wished his parents had survived long enough to see this moment.

Syina continued to smile as she pulled out the needles and wires that were still in her arms, and started to rise as to get up. "Well, mission accomplished, let's head back, I can finally wear my stomach plates again."

"Take it easy Mand'alor, the war will still be there," Kavan chuckled. "especially now that we have another reason to stay alive." he said as walked over and gently nudged her back down.

She slowly allowed him to guide her back down, breathing in deeply in defeat. "Alright, three more minutes, and not a second longer, I want to carry our son out of here."

He walked over to the window with his son in hand. He looked across the capital city to see it covered in flames and ash, gazing at the waves of incoming and outgoing blaster fire a few klicks into the distance. Avansen's giant red dwarf sun washed the city towers and spaces -crapers with a dark red hue. Massive statues and stone shrines riddled the landscape, shaking with each concussive barrage of nearby orbital artillery.

Kavan kissed his son on his forehead. And toyed with his feet a little.

Holding him made him wonder how something so small and precious could be grown and molded into a hardened mando'a like himself, into a destroyer of men. Out of all the battles and wars he'd fought in since he was a boy, he had never felt fear like this before. He had to make a man and a warrior out him, being someone's _buir. _Made him wonder how his own father Bal had felt in this position.

"Kavan?"

He looked up to his wife staring at him hard with a twinkle in her eyes.

"Sorry, I was deep in thought." he said sheepishly.

"I already know what you were thinking." She said with a smug expression.

"And what's that?"

"What are you going to name him?"

He hesitated. He couldn't believe that wasn't his first thought.

In Mandalorian culture a name needed true purpose and meaning, it was by a name in which your honor and reputation followed you.

And he didn't think "adorable bundle of joy" would be a suitable name for when he grew up.

And since his cousins were butchered on Valus during the Accordial Wars, him and his wife were the only living members of Clan Tri. And when they died the name they left behind through their son should have meaning and purpose.

He toyed with different names in his head, till one finally stuck.

"How about...Balistik?"

"After your father?"

"And your Uncle Lisetik, who was more of a father to you." Kavan said as he moved back to her hospital bed, and put Balistik back into her arms.

Synia smiled and leaned further into her pillow.

"Then it's perfect."

A thundering boom came from the bottom of the space-scraper and alarms began to ring in the distance. As a squadron of OCA fighters flew by the window at full speed.

Kavan's wrist-holo instantly sparked to life.

The bright blue image of a man in full _beskar'gar appeared._

"Sergeant Kavan!" shouted the figure.

Kavan hadn't seen the soldier before, but he'd bet his credit reserves his urgent message had something to do with the nearby explosion.

"Are you and Sergeant Synia alright? Our lines have been called back, and the Avansensi rebels rallied their reinforcements from the northern continent to reinforce their assault here. They really don't want to lose their city."

"This was never their city, it belongs to the Avansen Government and more importantly their treasury department. But we're fine, after the medical frigate took critical damage and had to fall back, Syina went into labor, I had to bring her and a few troops to the nearest medical facility at coordinates A200 G300 H999." Kavan said while motioning to the soldier guarding the door to rally the other men.

The soldier hesitated for a few seconds after verifying their position. "Fierfek, sergeant you and your team are now behind enemy lines, and in the direct path of 122nd Rebel Infantry Battalion."

Their present danger was made evident by a second explosion much closer than the last.

Kavan grinded his teeth. He knew Commander Shru hated him, after he cracked his jaw six months ago, for leaving a team of scouts to die. It's the reason he was demoted from Lieutenant, and it was in every way worth it. But in abandoning his wife and newly born son to die, Shru signed his own death warrant.

"I'll kill him this time." Kavan said as he replaced his helmet.

"Yes, Sergeant, Commander Shru wanted to lure in the enemies newly arrived reinforcements into the financial district." said the soldier, not acknowledging Kavan's threat.

Syina continued to rock Balistik back and forth. "Well I can't wait to thank him for the advance notice." she said sarcastically.

"He's more worried about the main fighting force, if it weren't for my supervisor Captain Banan, you wouldn't be getting this status report."

"Thank him for me, Captain Banan is a good man, a better man than Shru, I can tell you that much."

A third explosion detonated just a few doors down.

His 2nd in command Uran rushed into the room, his armor scarred by carbon burns from blaster fire.

"Kavan, we just lost Mu and Recce, there is a massive force surging up the building and they're blowing all the security doors we put into place. I'm taking our last 3 soldiers to meet them at the next security door one floor down. The main elevators are still down, but there is a supply elevator at the end of the hall, it'll barely hold you 3."

Kavan put his arm down as the call disconnected, he walked over to Uran as the weight of their reality set in.

They grasped each other's forearms out of respect for one another.

Then without another word Uran released his grasp on Kavan and turned to run down the hall towards the sound of another explosion.

Kavan knew that he would never see him again. So he muttered a prayer for his comrades. It was truly an honor serving with them.

He turned back to Syina and began ripping out the cords connecting her repulsor-bed to the wall outlets.

"Find something to cover him up, I'm getting us out of here."

He knew he only had a few minutes before the enemy force pushed through his squad.

Syina wrapped Balistik in a few layers of blankets; leaving only his head exposed, and held him as tight as she could.

He rushed the bed out of the room, away from the booming blaster fire coming from down the hallway.

The power was out in the hallway, leaving only the dull red emergency lights and the faint glare of the setting sun to illuminate their way. Charts and tables littered the hallway. The building hadn't been evacuated too long ago, consoles were actively beeping, and carts were full of food and nutrient paste. There were even some knocked over bedpans pooling the fecal matter of numerous species across the floor, covering Kavan's boots in a wretched stench.

The blaster fire intensified and a few more explosions rocked the building.

Syina tucked her child into her left arm, and reached for her blaster with her other arm, it was primed and fully loaded. She looked back at Kavan. "I'm not sure if we'll make it out of this Kavan, but if nothing else Balistik must survive."

Kavan looked down at her as they approached the evacuation shaft. "Exactly what I was thinking, he said as he gripped her shoulder tightly.

He moved the bed to the side of the wall and called the emergency lift, he could see it coming down from the top floor, it was moving too slowly.

They weren't dying today, not if he could help it. They'd been in too many battles on so many worlds to die here, on this miserable rock with their newly born and only child.

He started to slam on the bleeping console, begging it to move faster. "Fucking move faster you piece of shit."

Balistik cooed at his father's sudden outburst.

Kavan turned to him. He was the calmest baby he'd ever seen. Explosions, blaster fire, cursing, none of it phased him, he was already a true mando'a and couldn't even crawl yet. He felt his heart warm up with pride.

As he turned to Syina, he heard the blaster fire abruptly stop.

Kavan looked down the hallway. The sun had completely set and some of the emergency lights began to flicker.

"Fierfek." Kavan said as he began to knock over tables and gurneys to provide them cover. He pulled the rifle strapped around his back to bear towards the end of the hall.

He saw sparks begin to move across the door as the rebels began to cut through.

"It's here." Syina said.

(Ding) The elevator opened up.

As it opened Kavan turned to it. His heart sunk.

Inside the elevator was dark, illuminated by a single console.

The ceiling was low didn't have enough room to fit Syina's bed, and there's no way she could walk yet.

He looked down the hall, to see that the rebels were almost through the door.

Syina noticed his hesitation. "Kavan..what are we going to do?" she asked, her voice full of concern.

"Improvise." he said as he replaced his rifle and scooped them both up in his hands, cradling her, as she cradled their child, and sat them in the elevator. He turned towards the opening door down the hall. He released the safety on his wrist-mounted rocket launcher and fired a delayed rocket mine on the door.

He walked into the elevator and pushed the button for the ground floor. "Left a nasty little surprise for them."

"I hope they like it, our men died for us, for him." Syina said as she tugged Balistik closer to her chest." She paused briefly. "I'll make sure their wives are given their honors and that proper funerals are held."

"And I'm going to bury the man that put them there." Kavan said calmly as the lift doors shut before it's steady descent.

The elevator shook for a brief moment. He smiled in his helmet knowing they'd sprung his trap.


	2. Sacrifice

_**SACRIFICE**_

_**Kavan Tri**_

_**Municipal Medical Center **_

_**Ground Floor**_

A few minutes had passed until the elevator arrived at the ground floor, it opened up to what at one point had been a pharmacy, all of the medicines and herbs had long been looted. It was a small tiled room, with broken cabinets and empty bottles scattered across the floor, several stripped medical droids lay stacked in one corner, the emergency lights flickering off their cold deactivated visual sensors.

It was eerily quiet, Kavan motioned for Syina to keep Balistik quiet as he scoped out the hallway leading out of the room.

The hallway branched off, to the right it met a small window, displaying the distant carnage of the enraging conflict; to the left it wound to a large open room, dimly lit by the moonlight.

A large desk lay to the far left, covered in damaged, offline view screens, datapads, and medical utensils. The lights flickered eerily and the faint whisper of radio chatter echoed from around the corner.

Kavan surveyed the room quickly, analyzing their options.

He turned to Syina abruptly, unholstering his blaster pistol. "Take this, climb into that vent against the wall, if I'm not back in ten minutes, you take Balistik and don't turn back."

Syina looked solemnly at him and nodded. "Husband." she said as she gripped his forearm tight.

Kavan's blood boiled, out of anger for the fatality of their situation, and for the burning love for his family, as he returned her grasp. "Wife."

Turning to Balistik, he rubbed his chin, slowly, taking in the weight of it all. "Son."

Without another thought or word, he turned towards the door into the hallway, refusing to look back as he crept against the wall separating him from the approaching radio chatter in the other room.

Peeping his head around the corner, he spotted 20 Avanseni rebel soldiers, huddled around in a loose defensive circle, the soldier furthest away was angrily yelling into his comm, pacing back and forth.

Kavan assumed he was the one in charge, no doubt, trying to desperately contact the squad of rebels, that undoubtedly painted the walls of the buildings top floor.

Three of the Avanseni rebels began branching off, slowly making their way further into the room, scanning left to right, inching closer with every second.

He knew he had to get the fight away from Syina and Balistik, and buy them a chance to escape.

Looking across the large lobby room, he saw another hallway, still dimly lit by a few emergency light fixtures.

Kavan unslung his rifle, gripping it tightly, as he looked back towards the pharmacy door.

"Family." he muttered to himself, as he whipped around the corner at full speed.

Sprinting into a slide, catching them off guard, he fired at the first soldier, blowing out the back of his skull, with a fine red mist of evaporating brain matter sprinkling the soldier behind him.

He slid into a front flip, hitting the other two soldiers with a barrage of blaster bolts, sending them reeling, screaming in anguish from the shock of their armor melting into their flesh.

The remaining Avanseni rebels now aware of his presence began to return fire wildly, as he made it to the other side of the lobby, taking cover against the wall.

The Avanseni began shouting loudly in their native tongue. As they continued to shoot at his last known position, the wall shaking from the volley of fire, slowly deteriorating from the sheer heat of it.

Kavan reached for a thermal detonator on his belt, priming it, waiting for a lapse in their fire. "Had to be a mercenary," he said as he sheepishly laughed at himself. "Could of been a farmer, people rarely bother to shoot at farmers.'

The barrage let up, as the rebels reloaded, their leader shouting wildly at them.

He hadn't picked up that much of their native tongue since they arrived here. But the word incompetence stuck out amongst the other incomprehensible drivel of Avanseni tongue.

Kavan turned out and flung the grenade into their midst, catching another 3 soldiers unaware, as they were disintegrated in a ball of bright orange light, the wave of pressure shattering nearby windows and sending another 2 rebels flying into the nearby wall, followed by the sickening sound of shattering spines, nearly muffled by the echo of the explosion.

The remaining Avanseni were enraged, and began rushing his position, firing more wildly than before.

Kavan turned and sprinted towards the end of the hall, making his way to a doorway on his left, blaster fire erupted around him as he ran.

Turning into the door, a blaster bolt hit the back of Kavan's helmet, melting the outer layer of metal, lurching him forward into the room.

His helmet began to spark and his heads-up display began to flicker as it lost power.

He removed it quickly and spun it around, quickly glancing at every detail, the blood red paint, and the various symbols he adorned it with over the years.

Looking into the T-shaped visor coldly, it stared just as coldly back at him, as if it too knew the end was probably near.

Sitting it on the ground, he continued staring at it. "Been through alot old friend, but unfortunately, I suppose you'll be sitting this one out." Kavan said as he turned back towards the doorway, readying his rifle as he carefully peeked around the corner

The rebels were slowly making their way up, eyes fixed forward, each step taken with decisive caution.

He rapidly fired off, blowing a rebels legs out from under him, he shrieked in pain, falling on his face, squirming uncontrollably.

The second rebel on line, returned fire, shattering Kavan's rifle, singeing his left hand.

He winced in pain, his hand trembling as the smell of melted flesh filled his nostrils.

"Fierfek, whispered Kavan as he cut a piece of fabric from his flight suit to bandage his damaged hand.

He knew he was running out of time and options, and any chance of him making it out of this alive probably went up in flames with his blaster rifle.

Kavan looked around quickly, studying his environment, trying to find anything that could aid in his escape.

Glancing along the wall opposite of the room, he spotted a power box, flashing rapidly.

"That might work." he muttered quietly as he unsheathed one of his vibroblades.

Without another thought he hurled the blade at the electrical box, sending arcing sparks in every direction, a veil of darkness now filled the hallway.

He heard the Avanseni muttering silently to themselves, shuffling their boots slowly down the hall, growing closer with each passing second.

Kavan took a few deep, paced breaths, tightening the grip on his second blade, he knew his life was over.

But he knew he'd go out as his lived, in his armor, covered from head to toe with the eviscerated guts of his enemies.

"I just want to hold them one last time." he thought to himself. "Let my child know that I love him, more than anything."

The sound of comm chatter, woke him from haze.

The slow sound of deliberate footsteps were outside the doorway.

The rebels breathing, undisciplined, and raspy.

He quieted his breathing, slowed his heart, and focused his hearing on the beating of their hearts.

The lead soldier slowly aimed the barrel of his weapon in the doorway.

He grabbed it, pulling the now terrified soldier into the room, skewering him on the blade, slicing upwards from his guts into his neck.

He turned the weapon towards the door, using the rebel as a shield, and unloaded the weapon into 2 of the closest soldiers, lighting up the pitch black hallway with the bright red hue of blasterfire.

Kicking the limp, oozing corpse of the soldier out of the room, he rolled prone into the hallway, shooting another soldier in the chest, emptying the weapon.

Rushing to his feet, he anticipated their sectors of fire, based off their last known formation, ducking and dodging bolts, as he made contact with the nearest Avanseni, slitting his throat.

He rushed towards another, nothing on his mind but bloodlust.

Then suddenly, the lights flickered on, to him facing the remaining 7 Avanseni, their blaster aimed at his chest.

He stood, breathing heavily, jaw clenched, muscles locked. Without thinking he lunged forward towards them, lost to his anger.

The Avanseni unloaded into him, tearing through him, ripping through his legs, forcing him to collapse to the floor, gasping for air, barely able to look forward.

"Syina", he whispered silently, barely able to utter the word. A single tear rolled down his cheek at the mention of her name.

His body was heavy, like a Bantha had decided his dying body was a great place to take a nap.

Kavan slowly raised his head, vision blurred and head pounding.

The lead rebel broke through the group, aiming a blaster at his head.

"Go to your gods." the lead Avanseni uttered, his finger posed tightly around the trigger.

His limbs began to grow cold, with every slow beat of his heart; vision narrowing with each passing second.

"War is my god." Kavan said with the last of his breath as he pressed a button on his wrist gauntlet. The remaining 3 thermal detonators on his belt sprang to life in unison, beeping rapidly.

The Avanseni's eyes flashed wide with surprise, as they were all enveloped in a scorching flash of light, dead before they were able to run or scream.

The hallway tore apart, splintering pieces of metal shrapnel spun away in a violent whirlwind of destruction, followed by a cold, empty silence.


	3. A Mother's Love

_**A MOTHER'S LOVE**_

_**Syina Tri**_

_**Capital City of Baloen**_

_**City Ruins **_

Syina sat against the wall of the large vent, holding Balistik tight, wrapped in her arms.

The sound of blaster fire had stopped, every noise had stopped, after a thunderous explosion that went off only a few minutes ago.

It had been 20 minutes, 10 longer than Kavan had told her to wait. But she couldn't help it, she just sat there, willing him to come back, willing him to suddenly tap on the outer wall and tell her it was safe to come out.

They'd been through so much together, so many times they had thought were their last, it just couldn't end like this.

She broke out into tears, silently whimpering in the cold, empty space of the vent, the sounds of her low cries, echoing down further into the dark shaft.

Balistik whined slightly, his tiny hand tapping her intently on the shoulder.

She looked down at him, his tiny eyes squinted, barely open enough to see.

He was the only thing that meant anything to her now. She had to get him out of here, anyway that she could.

Syina made her way further into the vent, Balistik tucked in her arms, under her chin as she shimmied her way through.

The meds were beginning to wear off, and a sharp pain began to rise in her gut, as if her body had only just began to realize the many stitches running across her stomach. They hadn't had much time after the delivery to see to her wound, she just prayed it wouldn't open on her.

She made it to the end of the duct to a large grated panel, the flickering light of flames and distant blaster fire shone through.

The immediate area was quiet, a few piles of rubble sat around the scattered flames. A faint cloud of dust hung in the air.

It appeared safe to exit, as safe as an active war zone could be at least.

She rose up onto her knees, transitioning to a sitting position, and kicked out the grate, slowly etching herself forward with her abdominal muscles, careful not to disturb Balistik more than she needed to.

The slow, calm breeze shifted her hair, it's cold touch chilling her skin as she stood. The sun had fully set, and the only illumination she had to see with was the scattered fires and a few barely functional streetlights.

She had to get in contact with Banan, he was the only person left she trusted, but she hadn't been wearing her armor when Kavan brought her here, so she had no comm device to make contact with him.

Commander Shru's decision to leave them behind enemy lines was without a doubt, an entirely malicious choice, and she had a sinking suspicion that he wouldn't stop there, if there was even the slightest chance that they survived the Avanseni assault, Shru would have something else in the works. And her gut told her friendly forces were probably not so friendly anymore.

Avansen's sun set in the north, and she knew the nearest OCA command post was 3 klicks east, at least it was before the battle lines shifted. Even with the possibility of Shru gunning for her, it was safer to try and sneak off a transmission there, then heading further into rebel territory, there she knew for sure they'd shoot her on sight.

Syina trekked onwards in the dimly lit night sky, sticking to the shadows as best she could. The sound of far off blaster fire had grown nearly silent, and she couldn't see any more fighters in the sky above her.

The quiet made her uneasy, the sounds of a skirmish meant her enemies were for the most part occupied, this made her feel exposed, like danger could strike from any direction.

She continued to walk on, her legs growing wobbly, the pain relievers affect had fully worn off. The vengeful pain in her gut struck more intensely now, she gritted her teeth. Nothing, not even excruciating pain, was going to stop her now. She'd take on both armies if it meant getting her son out of here.

From the darkness ahead of her, she heard the sound of multiple footsteps, walking down the dirt road towards her, heavy footsteps, armored footsteps.

Syina ducked off to her right, behind a pile of rubble, looking around her immediate environment for an escape route or something to give her an edge in an encounter.

To her left, she saw a large slab of duracrete, knocked down over 2 smaller pieces, creating a hut of sorts out of the debris. It was too small a space for her.

She looked down at Balistik. He was abnormally quiet for a baby, maybe somehow, in someway, he understood the danger they were in, and was doing his part to ensure their safety. She smiled at him, and knelt down to tuck him into the hut, careful to keep him bundled so he could stay warm.

Drawing her blaster, she made her way over to the edge of the concrete mound, lowering to a crouch, peering around the corner.

Four Mandalorian shock troopers moved down the road in a standard wedge formation, they looked all around themselves as they moved, surveying their environment.

She wasn't sure she could take them straight on right now, with them being so alert, she might have to try and see if they'd shoot her on sight. It was a risk, but she'd have to take a few of them to get off this rock.

"Psst hey." she whispered out towards them.

Their weapons jutted up towards her position, in trained unison.

"Who the hell's there?! Identify yourself now!" answered the lead trooper.

She leaned out a bit, aiming her blaster up into the sky. "My name is Sergeant Syina, ID number 0985632. I need your help."

They didn't lower their weapons, they stood looking back at each other, their heads bobbing conversationally.

They must've turned off their external mics and were discussing the situation through helmet comms.

That was standard procedure, a possible enemy combatant didn't need to know what they were going to do next.

"You check out." said the trooper sergeant, in a hardened, modulated growl.

"I need an escort back to the nearest command post." said Syina, with a strong military tone as she slowly walked towards them.

They looked at each other again.

"Where's the baby?" asked one of the troopers, looking towards his sergeant.

The sergeant turned his head sharply towards the outspoken trooper, a look of disgust undeniably piercing from the cold visor of his helmet. He then looked back to her, time seemingly slowing as he measurably raised his rifle towards her.

Syina quickly brought the blaster to bear on the sergeant, firing off a shot cleanly into his visor, his helmet exploding on his shoulders in a wave of light.

Her adrenaline burned fiercely, as she rolled quickly behind the two men to her left, as the third blasted at her rapidly, catching the squadmate directly in front of her several times in the chest, knocking him back. She jumped up out of the roll, as she blasted three bolts into the neck of the nearest soldier, as he attempted to turn to face her, blowing out his neck and lower jaw.

Upon landing she pushed his falling body into the last Mandalorian, their helmets slamming into one another with a loud crack, knocking them both to the ground. Syina walked quickly up to him as he hoisted his comrades limp body off of himself.

He stared up at her silently, his rifle lying only a few inches from his hand, it may as well have been miles away. She poured 5 bolts into his helmet and chest, her aim careful to avoid his armor plates.

Suddenly it was quiet again, the burning stench of melted flesh and ozone in the air.

She grabbed the now headless corpse of the Mandalorian sergeant, and dragged him slowly back behind the mound.

Dropping the body as she arrived, to check on Balistik.

The little guy was fast asleep, like she'd sang him a song, as if blaster bolts hadn't just gone off. No one could deny this was Kavan's son.

Her expression dropped to one of sadness at the mere mention of his name. The rush of adrenaline had almost made her forget the tragedy of her husband's death.

Syina pushed him from her mind. Another time, she'd have to survive now, worry later.

She flipped the body over and got to work unlocking the dead soldiers wrist computer. The base unlock and transmission codes had undoubtedly been changed. Scrambling the encryption keys using an old technique her father had taught her, trying to match the sequences.

She tinkered with it for a few minutes, the device beeping rapidly with each mismatched sequence. A final beeping sound and the device unlocked.

Punching in Banan's comm codes quickly, she sat there in the cold, waiting as it rung.

"Who is this? How did you get this comm code? asked a gruff, yet almost highbrow voice.

"Banan it's me, Syina."

"Syina? Are you and Kavan alright, I got worried when I didn't hear from you. Shru declared you and your squad as traitors, said you were selling telemetry data to the rebels." said Banan, his voice growing hushed as he spoke.

"Where are you?"

"Kavan and our squad are dead, they died to protect me and..my son."

"Fierfek."

"I'm a little over a klick out of the eastern command post, but as I just learned the hard way, Shru doesn't intend on taking me alive."

Banan breathed hard through his nose. "I knew he held grudges, but this..this is something else entirely."

"Can you get me off world?"

Banan said nothing.

"Banan, can you get me off world?!"

"Yeah, yeah I can, but we'll have to go together, if Shru found out I'd helped you, he'd have us all killed. I have to call Nada. Tell her to get the ship ready, meet us at this coordinates." A few numbers showed up on screen. "It's an old Avansen spaceport, a few klicks away from your position. "

"Thank you, Banan."

"Don't thank me yet, we still have to get off world."

Syina felt an increasingly sharp pain in her gut, looking down to see bright crimson blood seeping through her shirt. "Okay, but we've got to hurry."


	4. An Old Friend

_**AN OLD FRIEND**_

_**Apex Bridge**_

_**Balistik Tri**_

_**25 Years Later**_

_**In Orbit around Jefar**_

Balistik sat eerily still in the pilot seat, staring out the front bridge window of the Apex, clasping a nearly empty bottle of Corellian ale tightly in his hand. The dim light of Jefar's sun refracting off the planet's surface, shining in through the window.

The bridge was a dark gray, rectangular room with various computer consoles along either side. In the middle of the room was a large black circular table with a holo-projector in the center, surrounded by 8 bolted down chairs.

Near the cockpit were an additional 8 chairs lined up behind the viewscreen, each with securing straps and inertial dampeners built into the base.

It was empty and quiet for once, which was unusual, but he needed it right now.

Balistik could finally drink and think in peace.

Absently rubbing his stubble as he stared off into the void.

He took another swig, swishing it around in his mouth, the sweet liquor burning on it's way down.

Sometimes he just got this feeling deep inside of himself...this gnawing emptiness, that he just couldn't shake. He'd had it all his life; it would go away for long periods of time, but then it would suddenly and unexpectedly return as if it had never left.

And no matter how much he tried, nothing would fill it. Not credits, women, spice, the thrill of combat, and certainly not Corellian ale.

But Balistik kept trying anyway, over and over, to the point of exhaustion sometimes. He hated feeling this way. More so, because he couldn't tell anyone about it, well he could, but he can't.

Not his adoptive parents, not his adoptive brother, and certainly not his crew.

They were all mercenaries, their feelings were supposed to be in a beskar vault that they dropped into a black hole when they were born.

Balistik didn't think it would come across the right way and he was their leader. Leaders lead by example, he didn't want them to see that part of him.

Maybe he could talk to Aleena, he could always talk to her. But it would take a herd of banthas to drag him to do it.

The Apex's main holo-comm sparked to life with a loud chirp.

He groaned as he leaned over in his chair, spilling what was left of the ale onto himself and the floor.

Balistik slowly wobbled over to it, wiping his hands on his scruffy shirt.

A holo-prompt appearing as he approached.

It was an unknown connection, being run through several intersystem communication junctions, making it impossible for even his computer to auto-triangulate it. He hovered his finger over the answer button, pondering who could possibly have this level of security.

Balistik shrugged sheepishly to himself. "I hate mysteries." he said as he pressed it.

The blue shimmering image of a tall older human male, with brown graying hair, and a scar across his cheek appeared. From neck to toe, the figure was covered in light gray Mandalorian armor; scratches, scuffs, and blast marks covering the surface of his arm and chest plates.

His eyes were sharp and green, the worn eyes of a man who had killed more people then he'd spoken to.

"Banan Corsus, it's been a little while, about a year and some change to be somewhat precise." he said as he slouched over on the table, trying to compose himself.

"I know, old friend, I've been unreasonably busy, been on the move constantly for a year and a half , playing a game of interplanetary vine cat and womp rat with some mercs in bed with the Hutts."

Balistik covered his mouth, feigning vomiting. "Thanks for that image, I really needed that right now."

He paused.

"So which were you, the cat or the rat?"

Banan forced a half-smile. "I'm afraid I was the rat this time. It's bad business, even now, I'm actually calling you because I unfortunately need your help, as much as I'd like to catch up."

He could already tell this was going to be something big, he hadn't seen Banan this serious in a long time, almost scared even.

"Alright, well what's the job then?"

Banan pursed his lips before speaking. "It's a search and rescue...I need you to find my daughter Natalie."

Balistik sighed as he sank into a chair. "That really why you've been so busy the last year and a half? If you were so desperately on the run, what would make you think having a child would be a good idea?"

Banan shook his head. "No, she's not a child, she's actually only a few years younger than you.

Balistik stayed silent as he leaned forward slightly.

"I know...I know, it has been a heavy burden to bear, I hate keeping secrets from you, but I seem cursed to have to keep them anyway."

Banan paused.

"But I had to keep her safe, no one was to know, absolutely no one. Certain parties interested in killing me would target her..if I had not kept her shrouded in secrecy."

Balistik was as confused as he was angry. He'd been plagued with Banan's secrets his entire life. And here he was dropping another one in his lap.

"So is she being held hostage somewhere, where is she now?" he asked.

"Home, at least it used to be, she left for the Coruscant Underworld of her own free will a few months back, and for a while she'd answer my comm calls, but she doesn't bother anymore." said Banan.

The Underworld? If there was a list of worst places to raise a child, it'd be in the top 5 easily.

"Why there? You could've started a cozy little farm on a backwater that no one has ever heard of, not one of the busiest, crime infested mudballs the galaxy has to offer."

"I raised her there in secret, hiding in plain sight, right under my enemies noses. She was homeschooled, locked up in an underground bunker thick enough to withstand a bomber run, with nothing but a maid droid to teach and take care of her. I tried to be there for her as much as I could, but in our line of work, not as much as I wanted." said Banan choking up a bit.

Balistik turned away from the comm. "Well no wonder she isn't returning your calls. That's no way to live, especially growing up."

Banan wiped at his nose. "I know, and because of it, I barely even know the girl, she'd open up more to the droid then she would me, but she's my daughter and she was safe, until now that is."

This was a lot to take in. Seeing the man he always thought was carved from the side of a mountain break down like this, made his own problems seem so trivial. They'd been in dozens of battles together, across just as many worlds, and between all the explosions and near death experiences, Banan had remained unshaken through it all. But at the thought of being a failed father, he was on the verge of tears.

"So why don't you retrieve her? You're more than capable of handling any low life drug peddlers or muggers that get in your way. I'm sure if you went to explain the gravity of the situation, she'd probably see reason."

Banan chuckled as he allowed himself to fall back into his chair. "I was, until a few weeks ago, I busted my leg real good on Nar Shaddaa, and going to her, would only endanger her. Plus I know her well enough to know she wouldn't listen to me anyway, she's got her mother's stubbornness."

The room started to spin a little, as his head began to pound. Perhaps this time he had drank too much ale and he was sure Banan's emotional, secret sharing session wasn't helping.

"So what exactly am i rescuing her from, if your ambiguous enemies aren't even aware that she exists?" he asked.

"I think she's there trying to piece things together, I wouldn't give her the answers she needed about what happened..to her mother, or why she had to live the life she has and so she's gotten herself mixed up with some nasty folks to do it."

Balistik grimaced. "She's not the only one you're keeping answers from."

Banan ignored the interjection, looking off, outside the view of the hologram. A deep sadness in his eyes.

He sighed. "Well how do you want me to handle the situation when I come into contact with your daughter, this Natalie?"

Banan returned his gaze. "I don't care, drag her out if you have to, and kill all the scum she surrounds herself with. I'd rather she hates me even more than she already does, for the rest of her life, then for her to get herself killed out there."

Banan picked up a datapad, and flipped through a few screens to the picture of a young human male, with light blonde hair, and a smug twisted grin on his face.

"She's befriended the son of an interplanetary drug kingpin named Beniko Vel, he controls a pretty large portion of the spice trade in the inner rim. And outside of the Jedi temple, one of the few individuals on the planet I'd consider a more than capable threat. The man is a wraith, there is literally no further information on him, no pictures, no birth records, even Black Sun is weary to fuck with him. If it weren't for his son, I'd assume it to be an alias of sorts, hell it still might be."

Banan placed the pad down and sighed slowly.

"I know I'm ranting now, I have always been overprotective of her, and I've robbed her of a normal life. This is all my fault and it's my fight...but I need you to do this for me."

Balistik rubbed his chin as he blankly stared out into space. "Alright, I'll do it. Free of charge even, but when this job is over, me and you are going to finally sit down and talk about everything you've neglected to tell me after all this time."

Banan stared at him hard, a torrent of tears slowly trekking from his eyes.

"I love you as a son Balistik, and yes..perhaps we do need to chat after you get her out of there. I can't lose her too Balistik..I can't, I won't survive it. Just keep her safe for me."

It hurt to see him like this.

"I'll bring her back Banan. I promise you." said Balistik, his tone low and sincere; on the verge of tears himself.

"I'll you send you the data on her, as well as known associates of Kenan Vel, and grid coordinates of the places they usually choose to...fester in."

Balistik nodded as he punched in the coords. " Then we'll head out immediately, should only take us a day to reach Coruscant.

"Good, contact me as soon as you convince her to come home.. oya manda Balistik."

"Oya manda, Banan." said Balistik as the hologram shimmered away.

He just kinda sat there a minute, staring out the window partially confused, and partially angry.

As much as he loved that man, all he ever fed him was lies, since the day he was old enough to understand Basic.

But the sooner this job was over, the sooner he'd finally know..know what happened to his parents..

He clenched his fist tight, straining the fabric of his glove, his knuckles cracking.

"Finally."

(23 hours later)

The Apex roared out of hyperspace, the sheer ferocity and size of the freighter made vessels leaving orbit scurry out of its path, nearly colliding with a nearby cargoship.

The enormous black silhouette of Coruscant grew larger as they approached, illuminated by the massive interconnected cityscape covering its surface.

Balistik piloted the ship along the planet's axis, carefully plotting a course to attain a geosynchronous orbit. A slight turbulence rocking the ship as the gravity well of the planet attempted to pull them in.

He fired the starboard thrusters at full power to compensate from the sheer pull of gravity. Managing their output, using the gravity to expeditiously slingshot them around the planet's axis, pulling the ship around to the western hemisphere.

Balistik sighed. Gazing silently down at the planet to his right. From up here, Coruscant actually looked beautiful. The sun almost perfectly eclipsing the enormous globe.

A knot had twisted in his stomach, this business with Banan made him uneasy.

Why would he tell him about his secret daughter now?

Busted leg or not, Banan could sweep the floor with any gangster or hired gun that crossed him, and be out fast enough to avoid any unwanted attention. Why couldn't he just go talk to her himself?

There had to be a reason behind this, some angle to it that he just couldn't see yet.

While he trusted Banan wholeheartedly, his secrets had strained their friendship for years.

Even keeping the truth about his own parents from him.

Balistik knew he should take things one step at a time, especially in this business, thinking too far ahead at the expense of moment was dangerous and stupid.

He pushed the thoughts from his mind, focusing on his flying.

The Apex was an incredibly nimble ship for its size. It was larger than the average freighter, with a 3 story superstructure, a docking bay, medical bay, 2 mess halls, 4 cargo bays, and 13 private quarters of varying sizes. He and Aleena had lived on it for almost 10 years, and knew absolutely nothing about it. Its rugged infrastructure was almost ancient in design, its official nomenclature lost in time.

They had found it derelict on the fringes of the outer rim, abandoned. The previous owners had wiped all of the drives and rigged it with enough explosives to destroy a ship twice its size. But for whatever reason, the explosives didn't go off.

And now after all these years, and damn near every credit they'd earned, they put into upgrades.

The Apex was heavily armed and armored, and a nightmare for anyone pit against it.

Possessing a complement of 8 quad-cannon turbolasers running along the port, starboard, bow, and stern, four X-27 anti-starship forward cannons, and a few minelayers. Each bulkhead was reinforced with 10 inches of dura-titanium alloy with an outer coating of blast-dampening semi-solid crystalline gel. She could take a beating and return it in kind.

It felt good to be at the helm again, something about it was calming, relaxing, almost like man was meant to travel the stars, rather than live on a planet.

Aleena usually wanted to fly and would rip the arms off of a Gundark and beat him with them to do so.

Hell if she wasn't asleep, she'd be in the co-pilot seat, looking over his shoulder, trying to coach him through every step. As if he didn't teach her how to fly.

He remembered how long it took to train her. All those long shaky hours of her panickedly swerving around, entirely unsure of herself. She was always afraid she'd get pulled into a star, eaten by a giant mynock, or run into someone.

Balistik chuckled to himself.

There she was practicing in a remote area in the vastness of infinite space, and yet she was still concerned about hitting someone else.

It was frustratingly cute, but she'd gotten through it, and now Aleena was arguably the best pilot in the crew, and wouldn't let anyone forget it.

"Hey." A soft voice uttered from behind him.

It was Aleena, yawning as she walked up to him. Her soft blue skin shone in the light, wearing her black Mandalorian flight suit with her armor plates removed.

"How many times do I have to tell you?" she exclaimed as she playfully put him in a headlock. "To leave the flying to me?"

Balistik chuckled, gently tugging on her lekku.

"At least a thousand more times. And why do you feel the need to attack me every time I fly "our" ship?"

She released his neck, plopping down into the co-pilot seat. "I don't know, maybe I just like giving you a hard time."

Balistik smiled coyly as he flipped various switches above his head. "Tell me something I don't know."

Aleena crossed her arms and threw her legs up on her console. She pulled a nutri-bar from her front pocket, unwrapping it slowly. Looking over at him, she noticed the large stain on his shirt. "You been drinking again?"

"You know I haven't had any spiced mynock wings in a while, sounds pretty good right now."

She squinted at him inquisitively, chewing slowly on the nutri-bar.

Balistik sighed in an exaggerated manner.

"Yeah, yeah just a little bit."

"Are you okay? I don't want you to go down the blurrg hole again. You almost died on that Hutta job, I found you under a pile of Evocii corpses, covered in blood and gin."

"Aleena, I'm fin-."

"No! You said that last time and look what happened." Aleena sighed.

"This jobs dangerous enough, and if we go down fighting, like mando'a, I'm fine with that, that's a good death...but I will..I will not watch you destroy yourself. Over these past few years we've made something here that most mercs can only dream of..a family, and while I care about everyone else, you know that you matter the most to me, you saved my life, you gave me purpose, a home."

A gang of nikto pirates? No problem.

A platoon of separatist rebels? No problem.

Concise emotional communication? Problem.

"Look, I love you too, and I don't want to hurt you in anyway. Let's not forget you saved my life on Corellia too, I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't found you. But you had faith in me then, and on Kuat, the Sekas Asteroid Belt, I could go on and on. So I'm just asking you to have faith in me now, I'll work through it, eventually. I always do." said Balistik.

She looked at him intently for a second, then took another bite out of her nutri-bar. "I neva stoped." she mumbled with her mouth full.

He chuckled. Looking over her. Aleena really did mean the most to him. He loved Banan like a father. He loved his brother Feras and the rest of his crew. But the two of them had a bond unlike any other.

Their relationship wasn't exactly romantic, they had a few flings during the early years when it was just the two of them. That's just what happens when a man and woman live on a small fighter and have near death experiences on the regular. But they were never defined by it and they'd be together no matter which direction life took them.

"Well, time to work for a living." he said as he reached over to the center console and activated the main comm.

"Good morning Apex crew, this is your Captain speaking. Today's forecast is artificially sunny with a chance of blaster bolts. If you look off the starboard side, there is a lovely view of our destination, you can almost see the desperation and depravity from here. If you could all report to the bridge in about 20 minutes, it would be greatly appreciated. Uh, Vex can you grab some of the recon tough boxes from cargo bay 3 on your way to the bridge? Also regarding last night's camera footage, Feras, I don't know if you keep forgetting there are cameras everywhere, or if you just like it when people watch, but please put some clothes on when in the common areas. Thank you."

He turned the comm off and spun around in his chair, resting his arms behind his head.

Aleena smiled at him. "So what's the job boss?"

"Uh, well, it's a little more complicated than most of our jobs of late. I'll tell you more at the meeting, I'm going to go get freshened up, and grab my gear."

She nodded as he walked away.

It took a few minutes to travel from the bridge to his quarters. The door opening with a crisp magnetic release as walked into the room.

It was a pristine , one hundred and eighty square foot room, with a cool, metal interior.

A large bed was leaned up against the wall in the near right corner of the room. Shelves and cabinets ran along the far wall. A large entrance way, lead into the bathroom tucked away in the left corner.

His black, rugged armor lay out on his bed.

He'd been cleaning and organizing it, recalibrating the sensors and taking apart his weapons.

Banan and the Osets had drilled that into him when he was young. If you didn't take care of your armor, it wouldn't take care of you, and the same went for weapons.

Quickly ripping off his shirt and pants, he walked into the bathroom.

He stopped and leaned on the sink, staring into the mirror. His skin was smooth, ivory and muscular. His features were sharp and well formed.

He had the face of a 25 year old, but the grizzled eyes of man twice his age. His Mandalorian training and lifestyle had aged him far beyond his years. Most men his age were out partying or going to school, while he was out gallivanting around the galaxy blowing shit up for a paycheck. And he wouldn't have it any other way.

Balistik stripped out of his undergarments and hopped into the sonic shower, activating the sonic generators. The ultrasonic vibrations evaporating the dirt and grime off his body in an instant. He turned around to flip a switch on the far side of the shower. Closing his eyes as a fine mist of deodorizing powder descended on him and was just as quickly pulled back into a vent.

Stepping out of the shower and grabbing a towel off the wall, he rubbed the residual powder on his body into his skin.

He stepped out into his room, grabbing his buy'ce, staring intently into its visor. This was his real face, the face every enemy he fought had seen before they died. The face of a Mandalorian; and such a rare sight it was in today's galaxy. His people were alive and well, but the majority of them had given up their warrior heritage and embraced pacifism. While he didn't exactly mock their choices and drive for peace after centuries of war, they should have changed their name to match.

A true Mandalorian was a warrior born from millennia of battle techniques and training wrought from a culture that celebrated and worshipped honorable combat and war. Now there was only scarce nomadic clans scattered across the galaxy, most were merely hunters, just trying to provide for their families. And then there was the crew of the Apex.

Balistik laid the helmet down, quickly pulling his flight suit up over his body, attaching each individual body plate into the magnetic grooves of the suit.

He flipped open his AIIP (Armor Integrated Information Provider) on his right wrist gauntlet, verifying his suits vacuum seal integrity, body heat regulation sensors, and emergency sealant were all working properly.

All systems pinged green.

Balistik purposefully placed his helmet onto his head, twisting the seal into place with an audible hiss.

He grabbed his T-4 wrist blasters and equipped them over his gauntlets, the right blaster, fitting cleanly into place around his provider, the screen lit up in recognition to the blasters interface.

Balistik walked over to the cabinet along the wall, grabbing his Velocity series jet pack, throwing it around to his back. The magnetic resonators matching the frequency of the armor plate, evenly snapping onto it with a loud clunk. Also grabbing his EFE (Electromagnetic Field Emitter) belt, a localized accelerated magnetic field capable of redirecting small arms blaster-type weapons, with a 6/10 statistical reflectance chance and a battery designed to handle 200 individual projectiles on one charge. It wasn't full proof, but it helped to deter the majority of incoming blaster fire, and in an occupation as dangerous as this one, he'd take every advantage he could.

He grabbed his G-23 blaster rifle and his PX5 blaster pistol, slinging the former and holstering the latter with a practiced spin as he walked out the door. Double timing quickly back to the elevator, heading to the bridge.

When he got there, everyone was gathered around the briefing table, geared up in their respective Mandalorian kit, joking, bragging, or writhing in pain of Vex's favorite gut wrenching Trandoshan meal. A delicacy on his planet, Flaterian Organ loaf, which smelled and tasted as disgusting as it sounded.

These maniacs were his family.

He sat his helmet on the table. "Glad to see everyone in a good mood..fierfek..Vex, Trandoshan food or not, I don't think it's natural for any creature alive or dead to smell like that."

Vex chuckled, waving the foul odor in his direction. "It smells better than Aleena's cooking at least."

Aleena turned to Vex, smiling as she shrugged, quickly drawing her pistol, blasting the chair out from underneath him.

Vex hit the ground with a large thud, releasing a monstrous roar of flatulence.

The bridge erupting with crazed laughter, Vex rolling on his side to see if he'd shit himself.

"Alright everyone settle down, time to start the brief, Aleena help poor Vex up, and begin our descent to these coordinates, please."

"Fine fine." she shouted playfully as she struggled to help the behemoth up off the ground, "Y'know you could try and help lift yourself too big guy."

Vex tauntingly snarled. "You knocked me down, you pick me up."

"And you need to learn to appreciate a hot meal when it's made for you."

Balistik waited till Vex was seated and Aleena had moved to the cockpit to start their landing. "Alright then, the mission is a search and rescue OP, but not like our usual missions, this isn't an ambassador or some self-proclaimed planetary king's concubine. This is the daughter of our old friend Banan Corsus."

He turned to console at the center of the table, quickly shifting through the ships databases thousands of files for a few moments.

He selected the image file of Natalie, her visage shimmering through the hologram's projector.

Feras shook his head with visible confusion. "Whoa, whoa, I've known the man almost as long as you, Banan doesn't have any children, unless she grew to that age in the past year and a half."

"See now that's what I thought too, seems our pal Banan has even more secrets, big ones,..but even still, I can't help but trust him." he said as he looked around the room.

They all looked around at each other in agreement.

"And what's the payout?" asked Vex.

Balistik shrugged sheepishly. "You know..that perfect price that people pay when they pay you to find their daughter for a certain price.

Feras looked over him inquisitively. "Sooo, he's paying us nothing?"

"Yeah, you could say that."

They groaned disappointedly in unison.

"Oh come on guys. Just this one, I don't know exactly what I'm walking into and I'd like you all to watch my back."

He looked around the room inquisitively, locking eyes with each of his friends..his family.

"Anybody? Vandel?"

Vandel rubbed his brow for a few seconds, "Oh, well no pay is a bit inconvenient, I was making progress on my newest project and funds would certainly help its progress. A synthetic toxin that causes temporary blindness, upset stomach, and the occasional liquidation of the gastrointestinal organs."

The crew stopped and stared at him.

"Well obviously the latter is the desired effect, I've just got to work out the kinks." Vandel sighed. "But if you really need me, I'm in."

Vex and Feras slowly nodded in agreement.

Balistik chuckled. "Good, I knew I could count you guys. We'll pick up a few bounties on the way afterwards, I won't even take my cut. Aleena, eta?"

"About 10 minutes, the coords are taking us to the underground levels. Looks like level 1313."

He nodded. "You heard her, finish gearing up, I'll pull the mapping data, and meet you all on the landing pad, oya manda."

They all shouted oya manda in response and dispersed.

It wasn't long before Aleena gently placed the ship down on the landing pad, the ship shaking as the pressurized recycled air of the ship slowly released, nearby consoles springing to life with flashes and alarms.

Balistik lightly patted her on the back. "You always knew how to handle her best, Aleena."

She sighed. "Well it takes a special touch, a certain level of finesse that everyone else on this bucket lacks."

He started to rub her shoulders playfully. "I lack finesse?" he chuckled.

"At times yeah, I mean you're not Vex or Feras, I mean there's a reason we leave them behind when handling missions that require any kind of political maneuvering or subtlety, after the Manasco incident that is, may those killed in the fire rest in peace. But I've known you to be a little hot-headed and showboaty every once in a while."

"Name one time, besides last week during survival training and the Thenix Corp job, and the.."

Aleena turned up to look him in the eye with a blank expression.

He shrugged. "You might have a valid point, but I'll be damned if I admit it directly."

She lightly smacked him on the forehead.

"And that's why you should leave the flying to me."

"Alright, alright, fine, I know you take good care of the old girl, and she's every bit yours as she is mine." said Balistik ashe rubbed his hand along the bulkhead solemnly.

Aleena toggled a few switches and pulled a few levers in a well practiced manner, smiling gleefully as she did it.

"Post-flight checks complete, everything's green."

"Good, let's get out there, I want to find Ms. Corsus, as quickly as possible."

"Well, what's the rush? It's sounds easy enough. "

"The actual job isn't the problem." said Balistik as he took a knee next to her.

"It's just that Banan is finally going to tell me the truth about what happened to my family. Something I thought I gave up caring about, thought I moved on from."

She leaned towards him. "I'm your family, we're your family. Think about how long he's kept it from you, surely no good could come from the truth, it'll only hurt you more."

"It will, I know it will, but I need to know, I think I've more than earned some closure."

She lightly smiled at him and nodded.

If anyone else onboard knew the pain of not knowing their parents, it was Aleena.

She was orphaned on Corellia at birth, and lived as a half starved petty thief for most of her life.

Until he found her.


	5. Innocence

_**INNOCENCE**_

_**Corellia**_

_**Balistik Tri**_

_**11 years ago **_

Balistik walked casually through the Veil City, playfully tossing a bottle from hand to hand.

Slowly meandering his way through the dimly lit Red Light district, the hum of distant music, laughter, and air traffic filling the air. Lanes of speeders weaved precariously between the enormous gray skyscrapers that riddled either side of the road.

The streets were full with late night drunks and degenerates, stumbling towards their next destinations, shouting and mumbling as they went. Neon signs, blindingly illuminated the road, boldy advertising every conceivable vice and venue. Large gray skyscrapers towered dozens of stories into the sky, seemingly touching the stars.

As beautiful as it appeared, this city smelled like feces and rotten meat, especially in some of the more impoverished parts of town.

The Red Light district itself had a reputation for being one of the more dangerous areas, especially around last call.

Balistik crossed the street, making his way back to his docked ship, receiving concerned to downright terrified dirty looks from every passerby.

A Weequayan rounded the corner, skittering out of the way as Balistik walked by.

Not unlike common decency and proper hygiene, a mandalorian in full kit was becoming a rarity in the galaxy. It'd been a while since he'd even seen another of his brothers and sisters since he decided to leave his home on Concord Dawn and work solo jobs as a bounty hunter.

He'd been everywhere, from the blistering dunes of Tatooine, to the deadly and harsh jungles of Felucia.

And now forty-two jobs and 316 confirmed kills later, here he was strolling, half-drunk, through the streets of Veil city.

He was feeling good, he'd just got done turning in a federal bounty on some big time Devorian tax evader from Nar Shaddaa. Apprehending him as he attempted to solicit some strippers at "The Galactic Scene", a hole in the wall strip club on the other side of town, more well known for the occasional stabbing than it's customer service.

The Devorian dashed as soon as he had laid eyes on him, pushing over a waitress as he made a run for it.

He had barely made it to the door, when he buttstocked him crisply, as the door swung open.

If only he ran as well as he cheated the government, it was almost too easy. But he wasn't complaining, it was the best pay he'd gotten in weeks, even after docking fees and fuel costs.

Now he just needed to down this Corellian ale and find some company, and tonight would be perfect.

Making his way further down the road, looking for a decent place to pop down and sip some.

Suddenly a loud feminine shriek came from his left, down a dark, shady alley.

Without thinking, he rushed towards the scream, dropping the bottle, shattering it on the sidewalk.

Balistik was in a full sprint now, quickly making his way down the alley, trash and graffiti ran along the walls, it reeked of shit and had the chalk outlines of several bodies strewn about the place.

The screams were getting closer now.

He knew nothing good was at the end of this alley. He prepared himself for the worst.

Hearing the sounds of a struggle up ahead, he checked the charge on his blaster pistol, and pulled a serrated knife from its sheath he always kept on his lower back.

The alley branched into a larger, enclosed section between some low story buildings, barely lit by some aging, damaged light posts.

And there they were, eight men frantically stripping the clothes off a young twi'lek girl, as she screamed for help.

His fist tightened. She couldn't have been older than eleven or twelve, only a few years younger than himself. What kind of man would do this to a person?

He walked up to them slowly, taking in the situation. Trying to control his building anger.

He could have sworn he saw some steam coming off of his helmet.

"If you get off of her now, I promise I'll only cripple you."

The group turned in unison.

They even looked like rapists. Dirty, ugly, with rotting teeth, and tattered clothes.

The closest to him stood up, laughing into a cough.

"You? A boy? I don't know where you found that armor, but everybody knows Mandalorians don't fight anymore. Either get out of here or get in line, we found her first."

Balistik removed his helmet, sitting it gently on the dumpster to his left.

"This boy's generosity is waning, as are your chances to limp out of here."

They all started to gradually move up away from the girl, drawing knives.

He could see her face now, she looked back at him, tears still running down her face, clothes tattered, exposing most of her body, cuts ran up her legs and torso.

Now he was pissed, attacking the innocent was already dishonorable, but only weak men would stoop so low as to harm a young girl, now he was certain only two people were going to leave this alley.

"Offer revoked."

The one closest lunged at him, slicing the air merely centimeters in front of his throat as he stepped back, kicking him in the knee to turn him back to face the others.

Grabbing his head and twisting with all of his might, he snapped his neck with a sickening crunch.

The remaining seven charged, enraged at the death of their comrade.

These men obviously hadn't fought a fair fight in their lives. Their movements were sloppy, undisciplined, swinging their blades wildly, like animals.

Balistik dodged and parried the frenzy of attacks. "You aren't fighting a defenseless girl this time." he said as he swung a left hook, knocking one of them back into a dumpster.

He charged into the group, slitting the throat of the nearest combatant, dark blood oozing out into his hands as he attempted to keep himself from choking.

They surrounded him, unsure of what move they should make.

So he made it for them.

Jumping towards the nearest one, he grabbed his knife arm, breaking it at the elbow and hurled him into three others.

He threw his knife into the eye of the one left standing, running towards him, jumping forward grabbing the knife, pulling it down through his face into his neck, twisting to the other side, decapitating him.

Before the others could scramble to their feet.

He spun to face them, igniting the torch on his wrist mounted flamethrower, turning it towards them as flames jetted from the barrel.

Engulfed in flames, they screamed, flailed, and tripped over themselves trying to stand and run away. Their skin melting, dripping onto the concrete, creating an evaporating puddle of liquid flesh, releasing a pungent, human smell into the air. Within seconds, they were dead, the fire dying out with them.

It wasn't until after they were all down, that he finally felt the adrenaline.

It felt..good, better than usual. In a job where most people perceived you as the bad guy. It was nice to feel like he did some good once in a while.

Balistik turned back to the girl. She had stopped crying, and was trying her best to stand up, whimpering quietly.

She fell back down.

The cuts on her legs were deep enough that it had to be excruciating for her to even try.

"I gotcha." he said as he walked up to her, replacing his helmet and pulling his emergency medical pouch from his rear belt pocket.

He quickly pulled out some sealing foam and gently sprayed it along her wounds.

The girl winced slightly, looking at him work intently.

"What's your name?" asked Balistik as he spread the foam up to her torso.

"Q'ua tula see?"

"That's your name?"

She shook her head. "No."

He looked up at her in confusion. "Do you speak Basic?"

She shook her head left and right.

"But you understand it?"

She twisted her hand side to side shakily.

"Just a little then huh? he asked as he put a pressure gauze on one of the larger cuts.

She winced as she shook her head yes, trying to smile through the pain.

"Well that's better than nothing, here's something for the pain." he said as he pulled a few gel pain relievers from his pouch.

She quickly popped them, doing her best to swallow them without water.

"Good, let's make like Mynocks and get the flock out of here, before Corellian security shows up asking questions. "

He scooped her up off the ground and started to head back the way he came.

She dug her head into his shoulder and started sniffling, shivering against him.

Balistik held her tightly, as they walked.

Poor thing, looked like she had it rough long before tonight. She was scrawny, and had a few aged scars on her lekku.

He didn't even know her name, but felt compelled to hold her as tight as he could.

"It's okay." he looked back at the bodies. "They can't hurt you anymore."

"Cas niera." she whispered into his ear.

"What's that?" he whispered back.

She stuck her finger in his chest. "You."

"Me? I'm Cas niera?"

"Cas niera." she exclaimed enthusiastically.

He smiled under his helmet. "Sounds catchy enough, I like it, what's your name?"

"Wor..word, no have."

"Ahhh, well we'll deal with that when it's time, right now let's go get you some medical attention."

Corellia's sun began to rise from the west, as they crossed back to the main road, bathing the gray cityscape, in a bright orange glow.

They walked along the sidewalk towards the better part of town. He remembered walking past a medical center, hopefully they spoke Ryl and could provide her with some food and appropriate clothing.

More and more people started to pour onto the streets, staring at them with contempt and confusion as they passed.

But he didn't blame them, his armor was covered in blood, and she was covered in bandages, half naked being carried through the financial district.

But this is Veil City, surely they'd seen stranger things at 0600 in the morning.

After a few more minutes of walking, they'd made their way to a small medical center, a round gray building lifted slightly off the ground, surrounded by small fine cut bushes.

He started to walk towards the entrance.

"Niera, niera!" she shouted. Gripping him tighter.

"Owww, what's wrong?" he exclaimed, attempting to readjust his grip on her.

"Please, take."

"I am, I'm taking you to see a doctor, they'll make you better, I promise."

"No, take there, take.." she struggled to find the words. "You take, niera, you, please."

Well this was unexpected. He'd only met her an hour ago and she wanted to leave with him?

"You want to go with me?"

"Take." said the girl as she stared into his visor.

For the first time in his life, he honestly didn't know what to say. If he took her, what would she do? Carry his weapons out onto jobs, cook his meals? But on the off hand, if he left her here..what would happen to her? She couldn't have much here, and if she's intent on going with him, she couldn't have any family here either. How long could she go, before another rape gang found her, and he wasn't there to stop them.

His thoughts raced on for a few moments, feeding his uncertainty.

Then it hit him. Where would he be now if Banan hadn't rescued him? If the Osets hadn't taken him into their home, trained him, and brought him up to be Mandalorian. Only one word came to mind, dead.

Balistik sighed softly. "Okay, you can come with me."

She smiled. "Niera."

"But you gotta know, the work I do, how I live..I hunt and kill people, and sure they are on average the worst of the worst people in the galaxy, but I won't sugar coat it for you. It gets messy sometimes."

She stared blankly into his visor. "Some deserve."

He chuckled. "Yeah some do deserve it; come on, I'll show you your new home. It ain't much at the moment, little rinky dink heavy fighter, but there's more than enough room for the both of us. And once we put this rock behind us, you won't believe what's out there. You'll forget all about this place, I promise you."


	6. The Underworld

_**THE UNDERWORLD**_

_**Balistik Tri**_

_**Docking Bay**_

_**Level 1313**_

The ramp ripped open with a crisp pressurized release and the descending crew was instantly hit with the foul interspecies stench of the Coruscanti underlevels.

Feras stopped in his tracks. "Oh fuck no, I might waste an O2 tank, just not to smell this shit, makes Vex's food smell good."

Vex snarled in disbelief. "Organ loaf smells delicious, this place just smells like shit."

The crew continued to walk down the boarding ramp in a loose formation, getting a proper sense of their surroundings.

The landing bay doors shutting slowly above them, moving the faint yellow dust that seemed to fill the air.

Repair droids, docking crew, and the meandering denizens of the underworld filled the multi-freighter bay; ranging from shady humans, to suspicious Bith, the underworld was a cesspool of the galaxy's scum, regardless of race, species, sex, or color, it was an equal opportunity place to have your organs harvested in a dark alley.

One of the dock workers started to make his way towards them as they made it down the ramp, quickly about-facing after seeing the amount of weaponry they carried between them.

The cold stare of their visors, were usually enough to make the average person find an alternative route around them.

Balistik shrugged. "Smarter than he looked."

He turned to face the crew. "Alright we're breaking up into 2 teams, me and Feras, are going to set up a sensor beacon at the exact coords Banan gave us, the sensor radius is set at 8 miles. We'll start hitting local dive bars, nightclubs, and other places the scum and nightlife of District 1313 have open tabs at. You three are going to set up a beacon on the opposite side of the perimeter, take a speeder around to help speed up the sensor ping, also scan passing traffic for anyone with ties to Kenan Vel, and report back to me every 2 hours. Any questions?"

Vex snarled in agreement, Aleena pretended to snore, and Doctor Vandel and Feras were too busy seeing whose rifle was bigger.

Balistik sighed. But couldn't help but chuckle. Who was he kidding, they knew what they were doing when the ship touched down. "Alright then, let's get to it."

The crew split up, Vex, Aleena, and Vandel took a speeder, leaving the pair of brothers to their own devices.

"So we're headed north? Placing the beacon on the top of.." Feras stopped to check his map, as he casually readjusting his crotch plate. "..hotel Syandana off of Concord Ave?"

Balistik turned from his speeder bike to make sure the ship was locked up properly.

"Yeah, I want to make sure the sweep is as thorough as possible, and that's the highest tower near the coords he gave us."

Feras nodded in agreement. "So why do you think Banan would lie to us, to you of all people, about having a fucking daughter, not even a baby, or a kid, this chick is full grown."

He said in disbelief as he held up a portable holoprojector with her image.

He didn't know why Banan would lie about it, but it wasn't the first time, after all the times they'd been in the shit together, one would think he'd trust him with this.

He began to notice Fera's irritation build as he waited to have his question answered.

"Sorry, I don't know why he'd lie about it, but I can't lie, I'm a little pissed off about it." he said as he attached an ammo bag to his speeder.

Feras shrugged as he mounted his bike. "Well at least she's kriffin hot," he said as he playfully thrusted the barrel of his blaster pistol into the holo of her head.

Balistik shook his head disapprovingly as he usually did when Feras spoke. "Why do I have a feeling tonight's going to be ridiculous? Anyway let's get going."

Their speeder bikes roared, as they activated, shaking the ground around them as they took off into the grim night sky.

The traffic ways of the 1313 were bustling with the hum of traffic, cursing, sirens, and the day to day living of the artificial environment. The Underworld atmosphere was a poor substitute for the real thing, the air full of dust, dirt, and the rank smell of improperly recycled air. The denizens of 1313 had lived there long enough, they probably could no longer tell the difference, but it burned at Balistik's nostrils as they flew, even through his helmet.

The night air was crisp, and there was a thin blue hue on the horizon.

Towering skyscrapers filled the compact grey cityscape, bright neon lights advertised everything from political candidates, strip clubs, and the latests holomovies.

The Mandalorian Duo zoomed through the skylanes passing traffic at breakneck speeds, other drivers cursing and screaming in their wake.

Balistik loved Coruscant for the same reason he hated it, it was too damn busy.

It was the perfect place for an intelligent and experienced mercenary to scout for work, with a pretty much endless source of quick jobs, the only problem was it took forever to get around if you weren't risking your life to do it and not to mention it was almost impossible to hear yourself think sometimes with the whole planet always being on the move.

"We're almost at the hotel." exclaimed Feras, the thrum of the dual DX' speeder bikes filled the air with the deep guttural roar of their engines.

Balistik saw the tower racing towards them, "Alright, I'll plant the beacon, you pull security."

"Gotcha."

"And by pull security, I mean don't wander off for an hour and get into a fistfight with CSF...again." 

Feras shrugged in defense of himself. "They started it, both times."

"By your account maybe."

Balistik reached the tower first, pulling up gradually until he reached the top.

He braked hard and jumped off the bike and grabbing the spire with one hand.

He spun around it slowly, taking in the scope of the city as he turned.

Taking in a deep breath as he gazed at the horizon.

"Huh, even the Underworld looks beautiful from a distance."

He pulled a short metallic capsule from a side compartment on his utility belt, attaching it to the spire with a crisp metallic thud.

Opening his AIIP he saw that the beacon was working properly.

Turning to face Feras, who was idly hovering next to him. " Alright, call the others, check the progress on their beacon, so we can complete the sweep."

"Gotcha, so the first stop is this..Club Intox?" Feras asked checking his own AIIP.

"Yeah, over in Little Corellia."

Feras sighed. "I know we're here for Natalie, but we should check and see if there's a bounty on the sleemo who chose the name of the club, so I can shoot him in the face...hell, I'll do it for free. I wonder what clientele Intox attracts?"

Balistik chuckled as he jumped back on his bike. "I feel like it's a varied mix of shady, seedy, and" he sighed. "Greasy."

"Oh, so the usual?

"Sounds like it."

Balistik motioned for them to take off again as his bike swooped abruptly around, quickly soaring back into traffic.

He knew they'd have to get some civvies to blend in, the T-shaped visor usually drew attention, and every sack of shit criminal with a pocket knife and their daddy's holdout blaster wants to fight a Mandalorian, especially with a few drinks in them, so it was best to make a quick stop at an outlet store.

Half an hour later the pair arrived at Club Intox, both wearing rugged bantha leather jackets.

His jacket was jet black and Feras' a dark brown, both cut slightly above the waist, complemented with dark denim pants, and black fitted T-shirts.

Being out of their armor didn't mean they were defenseless, both had 4 blasters, 6 knives, and a few thermal detonators between them, tucked away in various locations.

The bartender waved at them as they walked in, as she wiped down a glass.

The security guards near the door, sized them up and quickly returned to their conversation.

The club was neat and spacious, everything was smooth and clean, patrons from all over, were roaming around, laughing, and drunkenly attempting to dance; near the bar was bright with yellow neon lights, and the rest of the room including the dance floor was dim, with a varying spectrum of flashes, with near epileptic intensity.

The pair sat down at an empty booth tucked away in the corner.

Feras grabbed a handful of gana nuts from a small bowl on the table. "Well I've been to worse joints, nice and open, can see both entrances, and hey free candy."

Balistik eyed him. "Those are gana nuts, have you been drinking?"

"No, I swear I haven't had anything to drink in the last 15 minutes." Feras said as he pulled out a small flask and took a swig.

He had to admit. Feras was the only person that he didn't mind drinking when they were on an OP. If anything he was less ridiculous when he drank, better shot too.

Balistik chuckled. "Don't get us kicked out before we can get a full sweep of the place."

Feras looked around coyly. "And who exactly in here do you think is even close to capable of kicking us out, the obese security guard or the cross-eyed one?"

He pretended to ponder the question. "Definitely our cross-eyed friend. He could keep track of both of us in a fight. Big boy however, probably has enough problems kicking his feet up at the end of the day, let alone kicking us out."

Feras smiled, nodding in agreement.

Balistik turned away, and waved down the waitress.

A twi'lek with light red skin, and blotted black marks going across her lekku. Her shirt was black, tight and revealing, and her skirt was more than tight enough to be used as a makeshift tourniquet if necessary.

She winced in pain as she walked over, stumbling slightly. "How may I help you?"

Her face lit up as she got closer to the table.

Balistik gave her his best charming smile.

She returned the smile. "How may I help you?"

Quickly changing her tone from a pretend to be happy work voice to a flirtatious one.

Feras pretended to look over the menu. "Maybe just some chips, and some Bala dip, we're waiting on a friend to show up."

Balistik pulled a credit chit from his front coat pocket. "I'll have a beer, doesn't matter which, surprise me."

She smiled. "Be right back."

Both their heads turned to watch her walk away.

"Oof, we're gonna have to come back here after this OP is over." Balistik said as he checked his holo-comm for the time.

He didn't expect to find her anytime soon. Even with the sensor beacon and them running around all night, there wasn't a guarantee she'd be out. Maybe she was somewhere reading a good book to the homeless or maybe somewhere beating the homeless with a good book.

He was just guessing. They didn't even know that Natalie existed until 23 hours ago.

She could be anybody. And from the data Banan gave him, she didn't appear to be a combatant. More like a reckless, deprived girl, searching for something she desperately wanted to know. He didn't blame her.

They continued to look around, looking for any female matching her description.

Being a bounty hunter for most of his life, he could pick someone from a crowd after only seeing them once. Even in the low light of the club. But it'd been a minute since he'd went headhunting, maybe he was rusty.

The waitress came back with his beer in a large glass mug with foam dripping over the top, spilling onto the tray. And sat the chip in front of Feras.

"Thanks." they said.

She gave another smile and then headed over to her next table.

He took a sip of his drink as it continued to bubble over onto the table.

"So what do you think?" Feras interjected.

Balistik looked around in a seemingly confused manner. "About what exactly?"

"Me, that waitress, the other waitress, the other other waitress, the bartender, and Natalie for me and well you-you could like watch or something, maybe?"

Balistik sighed.

He had an arsenal of silent looks he'd given Feras over the years, it was practically its own language at this point, and he didn't bother to reply half the time.

This look loosely meant that Feras should stop talking before he was violently sodomized with a mug.

Feras chuckled and leaned back into the booth. "Fine, fine you can have Natalie. "

Balistik shrugged. "I mean her being Banan's daughter, I guess I should almost think of her as a sister, but-". He hesitated.

Feras interjected to finish his sentence for him.

"But..you'd like to dip your chip in her dip." Feras said while dipping his chip in his dip.

"Well I wouldn't go that far, I don't even know the girl, but close enough. Balistik chuckled as he took another sip of his beer.

He was truly mixed on the subject. Banan was like a father to him, which would technically make her like a sister to him. A sister with a cute face, a slim muscular build, and a nice ass.

Balistik sighed. "I'm going to hell." He muttered to himself.

Their comms went off in sync.

A hologram of Aleena appeared, shimmering as the connection established.

She smiled at them. "You guys look so grim, thought you were out having a good time?"

"Eh, can't drink as much, I don't dance, and we're only interested in one woman tonight, which Balistik apparently wants for himself. "

She looked surprised. "Really? Isn't she basically your sister?"

"Here we go." said Balistik.

Feras jumped forward in his seat, spilling the rest of Balistik's beer along the way. "That's what I've been saying, (dropping to a whisper) I'm pretty sure it excites him more."

Balistik rubbed his forehead in frustration. "Look I don't exactly know how I feel about it yet, I don't know what's gonna happen..but if incest is wrong..I've never wanted to be more wrong."

They burst into laughter. Catching the attention of the people walking by.

Aleena slowly stopped laughing, pretending to wipe away a tear. "Anyway, we've placed our beacon, and are about to sweep around downtown, hopefully we can find your sister-wife soon."

He knew it'd be a minute before they let this go.

"Fine, fine, we're gonna finish up here, manually looking is basically impossible in this setting, too many variables. Just going to do a quick scan.

"It's not as effective, there's a 20% chance of inaccuracy." said Aleena.

"I know, but it's time to move on, can always come back, keep doing what you're doing. I'll call you later."

"Roger roger. " said Aleena as the hologram faded into thin air.

Feras stood up slowly. "Well let's hurry up and get out of here, before I go deaf." he said as he pulled the I.D. scanner from his coat pocket, waving it through the crowd. A faint, barely visible cone of light swept across the room.

"Anything?" asked Balistik.

"No, didn't pick up Natalie, also can't get the far side of the crowd, but luckily there are a plethora of warrants and low level bounties here. Could clean house by fusing the doors shut and calling the cops." Feras said chuckling to himself.

"Next time, let's plant a facial recognition bug in their security system on our way out and move on, next on the list is a dive bar called Fight Club."

Feras smiled. "Of course it is."

(30 minutes later at Fight Club)

Bottles, plates, and chairs flew about the club, the roar of the frenzied crowd nearly drowning out the grungy death metal blasting in the background.

Balistik ducked a bottle and went up to Feras at the center of the bar. "I went to take a leak, I wasn't even gone 3 minutes, what could you possibly have said to piss of an entire building?"

Feras took a long swig of whiskey with one hand as he held a struggling Rodian man in a headlock with the other. "To be truthfully honest, I don't actually remember."

The Rodian knocked the bottle out of Feras' hand as he squirmed and was quickly met with a swift headbutt.

He did love the occasional bar fight, the random chaos was one of the most unique experiences one could have, it was almost beautiful. He'd just seen an elderly woman trying to strangle the bartender with his own apron, can't find that on the holonet.

"Back to back?" asked Feras as he intercepted a jab, swiftly striking the back of his attackers elbow, shattering the man's arm and pushing him into a table.

"Naturally; you happen to see Natalie anywhere before you incited this riot?"

Feras feigned confusion. "Who? "No, I didn't see anyone that even looked remotely like her, but hey, free booze." he said as he dodged another bottle.

"Yeah, you've got a way with people , just watch my back while I do an omni-scan, I highly doubt our target would frequent a place like this anyway." said Balistik as he ducked what appeared to him to be an elderly woman.

He ran for the bar, hopping over to get behind it; Feras quickly following up behind him.

Balistik peeked over the counter inquisitively. It didn't look like the frenzied mob was going to calm down anytime soon.

He looked down at the scanner, it beeped slowly a few times, but didn't appear to be picking up anything, he knew for sure they were in for a long night. "She isn't here."

"Yeah, but I'm having fun."said Feras. "Earlier I beat someone with someone else."

Balistik smirked. "That's twice now."

"Who's counting anyhow?"

"Me, Vex, probably Aleena."

"Yeah well, let's go before this place inevitably catches fire."

"I thought you loved fire?"

"Yeah, when I'm the one starting it."

The pair hopped over the counter, punching and pushing patrons in their path as they made for the door.

A more than slightly obese, half-naked Bith charged at them, a strange brown substance dripping from his mouth and chin.

They stopped suddenly.

"That better not be shit." shouted Feras.

"Ehhhhh, with our luck." said Balistik as the bulging Bith closed on them.

When he got within 2 feet of them, Balistik jumped high catching the Bith with a staggering blow to the face ; as Feras went low, scooping his left leg up with his arm, hurling him into a liquor cabinet knocking down various bottles of liquor onto a computer console, short circuiting it, sparking flames.

They stared at each other for a second.

But not feeling particularly inclined to do anything about it, the pair laughed hysterically as they ran out, stopping just a few feet outside the entrance to the club, trying to contain themselves.

Him and Feras were effective, deadly operatives in their own right, they got things done. But everytime it was only the two of them, it always turned into chaos theory. Feras had the seemingly magical ability to shift situations in his favor by just doing whatever he wanted at any given time, it'd been that way since Feras' parents adopted him all those years ago and 9 times out of 10, it worked.

Balistik finally composed himself and pulled his datapad out of his pocket.

Scrolling through the list of possible locations, he stopped on a place called Gamble.

He hoped their luck would improve.

"Come on, let's head back to the speeders, I've got a good feeling about this one."


	7. The Trio

_**THE TRIO**_

_**DX-12 Speeder**_

_**Aleena**_

_**Skylanes of 1313**_

The rest of the Apex crew found themselves racing through the skylanes of District 1313, screeching between civilian vehicles, much to the chagrin of the drivers, the thrum of it's engines muffling the sound of the horns of agitated motorists.

Aleena flipped her left lekku over her shoulder, it kept slapping her in the face every time she made a right turn. As she turned her head, she looked back and saw Vex and Doc Vandel, Vex was just casually sharpening his teeth and Doc Vandel was busy making some concoction in a vial and checking his datapad relentlessly, no doubt he was working on some sort of rare flesh eating disease that could kill a bantha in seconds, like most of the toxins he made. And the two of them were acting like this was their average Tuesday night, which really it was, but still.

The cabin was roomy for a speeder, more like a small shuttle, the cockpit seated the pilot and the co-pilot, with room for 4 passengers and a gunner station in the rear, weapon racks ran along the right wall, and a holo-station/mini-bar combination along the left wall.

She always found that funny, one of them could be sitting here sipping some wine while someone else could be on the turret, blasting some poor bastards to hell.

"How's the beacon looking." asked Vex, interrupting her train of thought.

"It's coming in strong, once we enter the sector where people really drink and party, we'll probably get a match from the data Banan supplied."

"Good, I need to sink my claws into something, it's been 3 days; 3 days since I've killed something, it's agitating, and living down the hall from Feras isn't helping." Vex snarled, scratching himself vigorously as he walked up behind her.

"Oh relax big guy, and stop scratching yourself," she smacked his hand. " I'm sure by the end of this, you'll be knee-deep in interspecies death goop."

"I better be, the Scorekeeper always requires more of me."

There he goes again, Vex never shuts up about her, some sort of Trandoshan goddess that rewards the bloodthirsty for being...well bloodthirsty. And Vex was definitely that; when she first met him, he had tried to kill her and Balistik on Kashyyyk, but they'd taken him down. And when an honorable Trandoshan is defeated and spared, they offer their lives, as a way to atone and regain their honor through combat. Luckily enough for him, he owed his life to a well-tuned group of mercs, and not some civvie that would have him washing dishes for the rest of his life.

Aleena looked back at the good doctor as she flipped some switches, equalizing the pressure as they descended. The Doc was more of a mystery, he'd actually approached them looking for work a few years ago. He always pulled his weight and did what was needed of him, but for the first months, he was really quiet, kept to himself.

Her and Balistik had dug up as much information on him as they could, matching him to the birth name Ty Vandel, he'd been admitted to a mental hospital at an early age, him and the other patients mysteriously escaping when a fire broke out. Information from some of their more unsavory contacts suggested, he'd apparently been hunting rare creatures and serial killers for the past 20 years. Mutilating and experimenting on them, which would infer that he was the oh so infamous Butcher of the Outer-Rim.

He use to creep the bajeebies out of her. But he'd been a valuable member of the team, and over time opened up, finding his place among them.

"What exactly are you up to, Doc?" Aleena asked.

He turned, seeming decently surprised that anyone else was even there. "Oh, I'm working on turning a weaponized version of the Rakghoul plague, into a thin localized caustic toxin."

She laughed. "Of course you are, do me a favor and don't spill any, transforming into a murderous shriveled beast, would really put a damper on my weekend plans."

The beacon alarm started to blare.

"Finally!" Vex shouted.

Aleena checked the readings. "It's a Tanz Lycell, a gunrunner with ties to Kenan Vel and more then likely his father, whom of which we still have surprisingly little information on, considering we're tied into every major galactic information network known. I think after we get done finding this Natalie chick, we should take a closer look at him."

Doctor Vandel walked up and sat in the co-pilot seat and pressed a few keys on his monitor. "Well, I do enjoy a good mystery myself. Hmm, ah yes, I see our Tanz friend coming up on the left."

Aleena leaned forward in her seat. "I see him, Vex, you want this one?"

Vex cracked his knuckles and stretched, the thin spines on his head raised out of excitement as he put on his helmet, the duraglass of the T-Shaped visor flashed luminously red and then faded back to its original gray reflective color. "Oh of course, I do."

He walked over to the boarding ramp controls, checking his armor's systems as he went. "Climb 10 feet and then pull up in front of him." he snarled as he slammed on the ramp controls.

The change in pressure sent air rushing out as the smell and sounds of Coruscant came rushing in.

Vex charged forward, diving out of the speeder, landing on the hood of their target's speeder, sinking his gauntlets razor sharp claws into the hull.

Tanz screamed and swerved frantically, trying to shake off his attacker, but to no avail.

Vex crawled towards him, slowly, fighting the wind and Tanz's maneuvering.

Tanz crossed over into oncoming traffic, a chorus of horns and cursing trumpeting after them.

Vex roared at Tanz, amplified by the loudspeaker in his helmet, making the speeder tremble as he punched through the glass grabbing him by the neck with one hand, squeezing with as much pressure as he knew a human neck could withstand, Tanz let go of the wheel, trying to peel the massive metal hand from his throat. The speeder began to sway from left to right, shuddering uncontrollably.

Vex turned to look behind him, a large space-scraper was coming up fast. "Fierfek, hey Aleena pull behind us, and get ready to aim high, I'm going to get clear of civilians, then I want you to blow it."

Aleena chimed back over the comm. "Vex, I appreciate the offer, but I told you our relationship is strictly professional, plus I don't want any scales in my mouth."

"You know good goddamn well what I mean." shouted Vex as he grabbed the wheel with his other hand hurling the speeder up into the sky.

After a few seconds of climbing high away from traffic, near the massive ceiling of the underground, Vex jumped off the derelict speeder, grabbing Tanz with both hands as he went, activating his jetpack with a Trandoshan vocal command.

Aleena quickly pulled in behind the frenzied speeder, firing all of the DX-12's forward blaster cannons, vaporizing it, sending a fine mist of sparks and shrapnel through the air.

Tanz screamed as he and Vex soared through the night sky. "What the fuck are you and what do you want with me?" he shouted.

Vex dove for the nearest rooftop, shearing back upwards at the last second to gently land on his feet; upon landing he threw Tanz to the ground, nearly landing on his face.

"We've got questions for you, and you better pray to the Scorekeeper, that you have answers." Vex snarled as he unsheathed his gauntlet claws again, studded at the top of each finger tip.

Aleena pulled the speeder around sharply, leveling the boarding ramp with the edge of the rooftop.

Doctor Vandel walked to the edge. "Bring him aboard, Vex, I have..methods that guarantee a truthful response, within ten minutes."

Vandel gave Tanz a look over. "Well maybe even less than that."

Vex grabbed Tanz, threw him over his shoulder and made his way to the ramp. "Sure thing Doc, but I get cross him out when you're done."

"Well, of course my gargantuan friend, your catch, your kill, besides I'm usually only interested in our targets after they're dead, they make far more compliant test subjects."

The ramp started to raise as they walked, Tanz screamed and bellowed, as the ramp shut firmly in place.


	8. The Hunt

_**THE HUNT**_

_**1313**_

_**Balistik Tri **_

_**En route to target location**_

It didn't take Balistik and Feras long to reach their destination, upon arrival they landed a few hundred feet away from their target location and sent their speeder bikes to standby on a nearby rooftop.

Balistik took a deep breath and took in his surroundings.

This was a noticeably nicer section of the district, this street alone had some of the taller buildings he'd seen in the Underground. Everything looked fixed up and there was little to no trash on the ground.

Which wouldn't mean too much on the surface of Coruscant, but in the Underground, more aesthetically pleasing locations were more than likely the result of organized crime, very organized, at least enough to sustain the funds and connections with district officials needed to improve the quality of the areas they worked and lived in.

Balistik turned to Feras. "You see what I'm seeing?"

Feras looked around. "Well for one, there isn't shit smeared on the walls, so that's a plus.

Who do you figure is keeping it pretty and feces free? Black Sun, The Hutts?"

"I'm sure we'll figure it out before the end of the night, maybe this Beniko Vel is entirely unaffiliated.

For now let's head over, check and see if Natalie is at Gamble."

They walked casually towards the entrance of the building, it was unusually tall for a club, lights flashed inside, until halfway up the building, the windows were tinted even.

He poked Feras shoulder and pointed up towards it as they walked. "Half pleasure, half business."

"No kidding, if we can't find Natalie on the lower levels, we're gonna have come back with some more firepower to check up there."

"Agreed."

As they arrived at the door. A short, but muscular bald human man, guarding the door stood up from his stool.

He didn't seem happy, in fact, he looked as if he'd never been his entire life.

"Clubs closed." he snarled, spitting on the ground next to Balistik's boot.

Chuckling to himself, Balistik looked past the bouncer, to better see the sign posted on the door.

"Huh, that's funny, door says it's open another 4 hours, I'm pretty sure I hear some music, and you're still standing here for some reason."

The bouncer looked casually at the sign. "Nope, looks like it's closed to me, standing here is more of a hobby of mine."

Balistik looked to Feras and back at the bouncer.

He reached into his top jacket pocket. "How about the club opens for one credit chit?"

The bouncer looked insulted. "Are you two for real?" cackling as he spoke.

"Two chips."

The bouncer continued to laugh.

"Five."

He stopped laughing and looked longingly at the chips.

(10 Seconds later)

They walked through the outer door, down a long dimly lit hallway leading to an open doorway 30 feet away. Handrails running along a smooth gray durasteel wall; with a thick velvet like carpet covering the floor.

Feras shook his head furiously. "How the fuck did you grease that guy with 5 credits?"

Balistik chuckled. "You could say I took..a gamble." Balistik perched his mouth open and finger gunned at him.

Feras stopped in his tracks. "I've killed for less." he said laughing as they continued to walk.

"Alright, now when we get in here, you should roam, find a security terminal and plug in, have the internal cameras run recognition on Natalie. Save us the trouble of going floor to floor."

"And where will the mighty Balistik go?"

Balisitk grinned. "To get a drink."

Feras shook his head as walked ahead of him, off into the crowd.

The first floor of the club was a large brightly lit room, with the same velvet carpeting as the hall. There were gambling tables and slot machines riddling the floor. A large circular bar sat in the center of the room, with burgundy stools every 3 feet. The patrons were well-dressed, in high-end casual clothing, walking around to the different tables, drinking and laughing.

Security guards ran alongside the outer wall.

Balistik took it all in.

This was a definite improvement over the other locations. He could actually hear himself think.

And by the looks of the clientele the chances of someone trying to pick-pocket him or throw an old woman were astronomically lowered.

He made his way over to the bar, politely moving through the crowd as he went.

One of the bartenders nodded as he took a stool. "What'll you have?"

"How about a mynock martini?"

"Shaken or stirred?

"Eh, surprise me."

The bartender nodded again as he walked to the otherside of the bar to make the drink.

Spinning around in his chair Balistik took another look around.

It was a really nice place, not too fancy, but just nice enough to enjoy yourself without having to watch over your shoulder constantly.

He still did, because in his line of work, being aware of everything around you as much as humanly possible, could be the difference between living and dying.

Feras walked up out of the crowd and sat to the right of him.

"Well, the people here aren't sweaty, so that's already a plus, definitely a more refined crowd." said Feras as he stared forward.

"Definitely; you finish up?"

"Yeah, I synced our facial recognition software with the security mainframe, luckily it was wirelessly accessible through the guard station down the hall by the elevators, even ran it through some old footage, she's been here 8 times in the past week." Feras said in a hushed tone.

The bartender came back around. "One mynock martini shaken, that'll be five."

He spun around and handed the man 7 chips. "Keep the change."

"Thanks, and you sir."

Feras scratched his chin. "Sure, I'll take a corkscrew, eh make it two."

"Sure thing." the bartender walked away again.

"So, I figure this'll be the most likely place for Ms. Corsus to possibly show up. The real question is, what do you want to do in the meantime?" asked Feras.

"Now we sit around, sipping our drinks slowly, try not to get drunk, and hope within the next few hours, she does show up, or we'll move onto the next place and just keep the facial recognition software running remotely."

"Try not to get drunk? Disgusting. But alright, sounds like a plan."

(2 hours later)

The pair continued to sit around, shooting the shit with random people at the bar.

Feras got trapped into a conversation with an old man with a twitchy eye who wouldn't stop talking about how bad his feet smelled.

Balistik didn't blame the man for complaining , he was a few chairs down and he could smell it.

"Five more minutes." he whispered to himself as took a take a sip of his fourth mynock martini.

Upon looking up, a more than familiar face walked through the front door.

She had dark brunette hair, that ran to her shoulders, where it met an almost goth dark burgundy dress with the sides and back out, her skin was smooth and pale, she had bright green eyes, that almost appeared innocent in nature, but at the same time, sharp and focused.

Even from here, he could tell that she wasn't wearing make-up, and she didn't need it, her skin looked flawless, she was probably about 5'11, only a few inches shorter than himself.

Natalie had a refined, but wild look about her. She stood there a moment looking around the club, taking in her surroundings, until she turned and started walking towards the bar.

He quickly turned to Feras, who had his back turned to him and clicked his teeth.

Feras was still talking to the feet guy, with a seemingly newfound interest in the conversation.

"Yeah, I mean washing your feet 4 times a day, just for them to still smell like the inside of a bantha's anus, probably requires some sort of medical attention, it's just not natural."

Balistik clicked his teeth again, louder this time.

Feras finally turned, nonchalantly. "Don't you agree, this definitely requires medical attention." he said as he waved one of the guys socks in his face.

It took every ounce of his will not to vomit, as he smacked the sock across the room.

Natalie had made it to the bar at this point and was a few chairs down to their left.

Not wanting to alert her, he resorted to sign language to communicate his point.

He slowly rubbed the stubble on his upper lip from right to left and pulled on his chin once.

Loosely meaning "look around."

He repeated it a few times, staring impatiently into Fera's eyes.

Feras finally got the message and saw her over Balistik's shoulder.

"Oh fuck." he shouted loudly, as they both rushed to cover his mouth.

Balistik looked around, pretty much everyone in their immediate area was looking at them, including Natalie. So he pulled something out of his ass.

"He's got that one...disease?"

Everyone just nodded and went back to their business.

Natalie stared for a few seconds longer and smiled as she ordered a drink.

He removed his hand from Feras mouth, and they began to wildly bicker at each other in a hushed tone for a few seconds, before abruptly stopping and facing forward, sipping their drinks in perfect unison.

A blonde human female bartender laughed as she approached, cleaning a glass. "You two are weird, it's kinda cute."

Feras started chatting her up, but he wasn't listening.

He acted like he was checking his comm for a second, while trying to figure out what to do.

He'd play this one of two ways, say nothing to her and observe, while keeping Feras in check, or initiate a conversation and observe her more..directly.

Without thinking about it much longer, he decided on B.

He hopped over a few stools, in a very stylish fashion and waved down the bartender.

"Can I get a whiskey neat and uh." he said as he turned towards Natalie who was sitting calmly, looking down at her hands, and smirking at his abrupt entrance.

She looked intently into his eyes, her bright green eyes more beautiful up close, the wildness he had seen, even more evident.

"I'll take one neat too, a double."

Balistik's eyes playfully lit up with surprise.

"What? You thought I'd want one of those sparkly girly drinks, like a mynock martini?"

Hinting at the drink he had when she walked over.

He chuckled. "No, you don't seem like a mynock kind of girl, also I'm pretty sure they used actual mynocks to make it, and I didn't think it'd be a great first impression."

"Second, the first was with your twitchy friend with that one disease."

"Oh him? No he's not my friend, he's my...patient."

She smiled. "Your patient?"

"Yeah, I'm part of an outreach program where we mentor the mentally handicapped." he said as they looked over his shoulder to Feras squirting vodka out of his eye into his mouth, much to the amusement and disgust of the patrons around him.

He turned back to her. "It hasn't been going well."

She chuckled. "Well, he definitely needs your help." she said as she quickly drank the shot the bartender dropped off.

She didn't even flinch, definitely his kind of woman.

He followed suit, downing his just as quickly.

"You have no idea."

She leaned in closer to him. "So you like helping people, you must be a pretty good guy."

"Maybe, yeah, are you a pretty good girl?"

She laughed. "You're funny."

"And you are? I just realized I never got your name."

"Well I didn't give it," she said as she stared keenly at him, a hint of flirtatious charm in her voice. "But it's Natalie."

"Okay, my name is-."

Her comm lit up suddenly. "Oh, sorry, excuse me, I need to take this."

He nodded. "Oh, no problem."

She got up and walked away, towards the bathroom, he watched as she walked away.

Feras scooted next to him abruptly. "It's been literally 5 minutes."

"What? What do you mean?"

"And you're already in love."

He shrugged. "I'm just talking to her, getting information and...stuff."

Feras smirked. "There was a whole lot of giggling for getting information."

"I'm just getting a feel for the situation, while you're over there doing party tricks."

"The situations not the only thing you're trying to get a feel for over here."

He had to admit, he walked into that one, but all fun and games aside, he knew he was on a mission, he'd found her, that was step one, now they just had to find a way to get her out of here, without a scene and bringing too much attention to themselves.

"Look go back over there, she'll be back in a minute." he said as he glanced over towards the ladies room as a woman walked in, and saw that all the stalls were open, as was the window against wall.

Feras leaned in to see it too.

"Damn, stood up, well there's a first time for everything, tough luck buddy."

"Fuck." Balistik jumped up and threw a handful of credit chips on the counter, more than enough for the bill.

They both burst out of the front door, knocking down the bouncer, and turned to the alley where the window let out.

The bouncer screamed out after them. Balistik turned and threw more credits at him as he ran.

They made their way to the alley entrance to see Natalie scaling the adjacent building using the fire escape, jumping from ledge to ledge.

Feras stood apparently amazed and started clapping. "She's doing all that in heels."

Natalie looked down to see them standing there, Feras clapping like a maniac.

She gave them a rushed dirty look and jumped up onto the roof of the building.

Balistik looked to Feras. "Show's over, back to back."

They stood back to back and laced their arms together, pushing against each other to run up the wall.

Reaching the top and flipping onto the roof with practiced accuracy.

Natalie was on the other end of the roof with her back turned, yelling frantically into her comm. "No, I don't know who they are or who they're working for, I've never seen them before tonight, she paused, no I wasn't flirting with him, Lucas is a liar."

The pair slowly walked within 10 feet of her.

Feras silently laughing as they approached. "Oh no, you totally were."

She turned slowly in surprise. As if she hadn't expected them to be able to get up the building, let alone so quickly.

Feras continued on, this time in a mocking tone. "Oh my, you must be like a wonderful human being, by the way, how big is it?" he finished with a girly giggle.

She quickly turned and leapt to the next rooftop, with a new found urgency.

The two looked at each other for a hesitant second, then leapt to the next rooftop after her.

Running across the roof, leaping and bounding over vents and generators as they went.

Natalie had a 20 foot lead, she threw her heels off and ripped off the bottom of her dress as she ran, increasing her pace. She jumped up over another vent and turned around mid-air and grabbing throwing knives from a holster in-between her legs, that had been kept hidden by her dress, and hurled them at her pursuers.

Feras caught the ones aimed him and Balistik swatted his out of the air, still sprinting full speed ahead.

She turned back to run, muttering to herself. "Fuck, fuck fuck, fuck."

Natalie jumped onto a large ladder, leading to the roof of a significantly taller building, approximately 12 stories high.

By the time they'd reached the ladder she was about a ¼ of the way up.

They began their climb, one after the other, moving as quickly as they could.

Upon reaching the top, she pulled a small holdout blaster from her other thigh, and unloaded on the upper supports, shattering and melting the metal, sending the ladder slowly lurching towards the lower rooftop.

"Oh come on!" shouted Feras as he jumped to grab onto a ledge protruding from the side of the building.

Balistik grabbed onto a pipe on the opposite side of the tumbling ladder, it shook and bent, sending steam through the seams. "Oh this isn't so bad, she sure knows how to show a guy a good time."

Feras adjusted his grip, to look at him. "True, a nice leisurely jog in the smog infested artificial night of the Coruscanti Underworld; and she's even had the decency to not directly shoot at us yet."

"What a nice girl." Balistik said as he pulled a grapnel gun from one of his jackets many inner pockets.

He pulled and held the trigger, the latch spike landing just below the highest ledge.

Upon releasing the trigger, he was hurled upwards, his jacket bellowing in the breeze as he reached the top of the building, Feras quickly following suit.

They climbed up to see Natalie a few rooftops over.

"We'll have to chase her for real now, I'm not going to be searching bars all night."

"I hear that, I've had enough smelly socks for one night." said Feras.

They ran side by side, sprinting faster than before, ducking obstacles and hopping over the gaps in the rooftops as they went, solely intent on catching up to her.

Balistik ducked under a pipe. "Someone must've tipped her off that we've been to all of her hangouts, maybe some of Vel's contacts that weren't in the database. Or security found our facial recognition bug."

She might've thought they were trying to kill her. He hadn't thought of that, so it was possible that this entire situation was just a big misunderstanding.

Too late now, might as well follow her, see what else she can do, that turn-around throw was rather impressive, maybe she was more than she appeared, maybe more like her father?

The Mandalorian Duo was catching up to her, she glanced back for a split second and increased her pace.

Feras turned to him casually. "Y'know, she's pretty fast actually."

"It's that mando'a blood coursing through her veins."

"Or maybe it's because she probably weights 120 and is being chased by two strange men in the middle of the night."

Balistik shrugged. "That too; I think the string of accessible rooftops is ending up ahead, be ready."

Natalie reared to a halt at the end of the last building. The next roof was across a massive skylane, filled with the ever rushing late night traffic of the district. Massive neon advertisement boards hovered along the adjacent buildings, brightly illuminating the surrounding area with deep purple light.

Her haired whipped in the wind, as she turned to see them almost upon her.

"Only one way to go." she said quietly to herself.

She looked around for a second, taking in every detail. And then allowed herself to fall off the building.

"Oh fierfek." shouted Balistik as they ran up to the edge of the building, leering down.

Natalie had landed on a speeder bus, she was on one knee looking up at them, smiling and waving triumphantly as it took off to their left.

Feras chuckled. "That was dramatic."

"Come on!"

They fired their grapnels at the bus, impacting on the side of the bus, reeling them forward towards it.

Natalie pulled her pistol again, perfectly shooting their lines in quick succession , forcing them to adjust their fall, flipping onto a large speeder behind the bus.

The driver cursing loudly and flailing it's 4 arms at them.

"Oh she's good, she's real good." exclaimed Balistik.

"Yeah, no shit, that's twice now I've unexpectedly fallen because of her."

"Should be grateful, like you said, she hasn't shot us yet. And with aim like that, she definitely could have."

"Well let's hurry up and thank her, before she has a change of heart." said Feras.

She jumped off the bus onto a large building to her left and turned to continue running.

Balistik and Feras landed on the roof not too soon after her, she quickly turned and unloaded on them, spraying a torrent of blaster fire towards them.

They flipped and twisted in the air with acute acrobatic ease, dodging the incoming fire, their EFE belts helping them to avoid the barrage.

Natalie shook her head in disbelief. "What the fuck are you guys?" she said as she continued running, not waiting for an answer.

"Despite how this all must seem, we really just want to talk." Balistik shouted.

"Yeah! But not like "talk talk", like actually talk, I'm sure a lot of people (takes breath) that chase people in the darkness of the night say they want to talk, but they really want to "talk talk", but we really just want to talk."

Balistik eyed him.

Natalie turned and shouted. "You're an idiot!"

"See it worked, now she's talking to us." Feras proudly exclaimed.

They were approaching another skylane, with a large advertisement board that ran across, perpendicular to the lane. Almost perfectly aligned to cross to the other side.

She jumped onto it, quickly sprinting across, turning to shoot out one of its side repulsor panels, causing it to lean forward and descend towards the ground.

Balistik and Feras jumped on the board sliding down, one in front of the other, landing on the other side, into a dark alley.

They ran for a few minutes into the alley, where it seemed there were no other direct paths to take, in and out of it, and eventually they came to a dead-end.

They ran up to the wall, and looked up and around.

Balistik heard a small beeping sound coming towards them from above, squinting into the dark, he saw a faint red light flashing, coming ever closer. "Fierfek."

He launched himself off of Feras's shoulders and backflip kicked it back the way they came.

It clattered onto the floor 25 feet away, erupting into a roar of bright yellow and orange light, the sound of it's detonation crackingly amplified by the alley walls.

Balistik and Feras looked up to see Natalie standing at the top of the wall, about 30 feet above them.

She started clapping, slowly. "You guys are good, I mean scary fucking good, are you sure you aren't some new protoype assassin droids?"

Feras shook his finger at her. "I honestly think there is a more pressing question at the moment, where in the actual fuck, are you keeping all of these weapons? I mean..I've got an idea."

She smiled. "This has been fun, thanks for the workout." said Natalie, still clutching her pistol.

Balistik smiled at her coyly. "I knew there was a reason my parents warned me about meeting strange women at bars, especially in this day and age, you just never know when they're going to throw a grenade at you." he said as looked to Feras nodding his head in agreement. "But I see no reason we can't sit here and have a civil conversation, I thought we were getting along pretty well back there?"

Natalie looked him deep in his eyes, her green eyes were even more sharp and focused than when he first saw them, the eyes of a killer.

A look she undoubtedly saw in his own.

He didn't know this girl, sure she'd been more than happy to play a game of cat and mouse, and she was Banan's daughter, but they were still strangers to each other, he had no idea what she was truly capable of. It was hard to get a read on her. Would she even listen to reason? Would she come quietly? Would she force their hand? There were a lot of maybes, but he wanted to try and reach her.

He looked deeper into her eyes, trying to give her his best reassuring look. "We just want to talk."

She stared into him still, with a deadpan expression. "Yeah, I know, I heard you the first twenty times." she said as she walked away from the edge of the building.

They fired their 2nd and last grapnel guns, implanting the latches at the very edge of the ledge above them.

Natalie quickly turned and shot out the first one, and then the second, too late.

Balistik launched far above the ledge, tossing a small metallic sphere behind her before landing on the roof.

She pulled the trigger rapidly at him, standing not more than 5 feet away from him; but the blaster would not fire.

"Stupid thing, there's plenty of charge left." she exclaimed as she checked it's systems, still continuing to pull the trigger.

Balistik put his hands up as he walked slowly towards her, allowing the barrel to rest on his forehead.

She just stood there, seemingly cautious, wary, but she appeared to finally be ready to listen.

"Y'know you dropped these." said Balistik, as he reached very slowly towards his lower back, trying to be as non-threatening as possible.

He retrieved a pair of slightly scuffed burgundy heels, that had been tied to his belt.

"I assume these are yours, unless of course there are other women scaling buildings in high heels that you know of?"

Natalie looked at the heels and then back at him. "No, not many."she said as she snatched the heels.

She lowered the pistol, holding it at her waist. "So, what did you want again?"

"It's not what I want. We were sent by your father, Banan."

A look of shock and anger came across her face and then quickly dissipated.

"Well what does he want?"

"You. He wants you extracted out of here, said you were in over your head, that you were here looking for answers that you would never find. That you were mixing with the wrong people."

"Did he also tell you that I can handle myself?" she lightly sneered.

"No, he neglected to mention it. But from what I've seen, I know you can." he said as stepped a little closer to her.

She didn't react, just stared at him, her gaze softening.

"But I've known Banan my entire life, so when he said that his daughter..the one I never knew existed was in trouble, I didn't hesitate."

"Funny, he's never mentioned you either." Natalie said sharply.

"He's a secretive guy, and despite how frustrating it's been, I know that he's got his reasons."

She threw her arms up in frustration. "But are they good reasons? All my life, he's kept the secret of my mother's death from me, and the only hint of a lead I could find was in some of his old files, bringing me back here to Beniko Vel, an elusive and equally secretive person that I've been working for months to find, working every angle and every lead possible. Even throwing myself in with these disgusting criminals, hoping to find something..anything..do you know what that's like?"

Balistik chuckled. "Actually I do...look I get it, I don't know you, I don't know your life, or your relationship with your father, the only thing I do know, is that my crew and I are here to help you, because in a weird way, you're kind of family. I've dealt with Banan's secrets all my life, and it's something that burns away inside of you, driving you to know something, anything about the people that gave you life, and I know that you aren't going to stop, your mando'a blood runs hot."

Natalie looked at him inquisitively. "Mando'a? As in Mandalorian? I'm not a Mandalorian."

"Well, I suppose not officially, you haven't been indoctrinated or properly trained, but your father and his father and his father's father, are Mandalorian and that blood runs strong. Banan even helped to train me."

He paused, seemingly confused."He really never told you? Has combat and training, always felt easy, almost natural to you?"

She didn't respond, the answer was obvious.

He reached slowly into his jacket pocket, pulling out a pre-coded comm device.

"Well, if you need us, call."

She hesitantly grabbed it from his hand, still clutching the blaster.

He activated his comm. "Feras get ready to move out, we're headed back to the ship."

"With Natalie?" Responded Feras.

He looked back up at her. "No, she's not coming."

Balistik turned slowly and walked back to the ledge as he pushed the remote to his speeder bike.

With a loud and aggressive roar of its engines, the bike swept in, stopping abruptly in front of him.

Mounting the bike, he turned back to her.

"My names Balistik, nice to finally meet you." he said smiling, as he roared forward off into the night.

"You too, I guess." said Natalie as she stood, left to her thoughts.


	9. Siege

_**SIEGE**_

_**City Rooftops**_

_**Natalie Corsus**_

_**High Rise**_

It had been 2 hours since they left her standing there on the roof, she just couldn't believe what kind of night it'd been. She was just out doing her rounds, meeting up with Kenan's clients, she hadn't expected to run a marathon across the city. At least not one where her pursuers weren't actually trying to kill her.

Natalie sat there on the roof staring into the night sky, watching the sky lane traffic streak past her, her hair bellowing in the cool night breeze.

She just had so many questions, where had her father really been when he went on business trips? How many other secrets was he keeping from her? It even brought into question..what really happened to her mother?

Natalie held up her two comm devices, one was her connection to the outside world, she could call her father and confront him about her heritage. The other was to Balistik, the mysterious Mandalorian she'd met tonight.

When he spoke, he seemed sincere, she was no stranger to men lying, but for some reason, she believed everything he said. It was strange, she'd only just met him, yet it felt like they'd met somewhere before, she just couldn't put her finger on it.

Her normal comm lit up.

It was Kenan, probably wondering where she was at.

She cleared her throat. "Hey babe, what's up?"

"Don't hey babe me, where the fuck are you? It's been hours, and I swear if you hang up on me again, you'll fucking regret it."

She paused.

If he only knew who'd really hurt who.

"Do you fucking hear me?" shouted Kenan, his patience audibly fading.

"Yes, I hear you, I'm on my way back to the compound."

"Good, don't make me wait all night for you." he snarled as he disconnected the call.

Natalie crushed the comm in her hand.

She was done trying to find answers indirectly, it was getting her nowhere.

Kenan was going to lead her to his father, even if she had to break every bone in his body.

"This ends tonight." she said as she contemplatively held Balistik's comm in her hand.

Besides, maybe she'd have some help this time.

(1 Hour Later)

Natalie had finally made it to Kenan's compound, standing atop the building across from it. From the outside, it appeared to be a normal warehouse, with thick, brown, rusted durasteel walls and large tinted windows about 20 feet off the ground, seemingly like every other building in this part of town.

But it was a deception, it was really a reinforced fortress reserved for running illegal weapons and drugs through the inner city.

It was usually well staffed, with the bulk of Kenan's goons running in and out of it all throughout the night, with some of his lieutenants even sleeping here from time to time.

But no matter which route or angle she attacked them from, this wasn't going to be easy, and Kenan was probably already suspicious of her not returning in time, so security was probably tighter than usual.

But it couldn't be helped, she had stopped to retrieve her armor and gear.

Her skin tight black bantha leather bodysuit, threaded with a lightweight tri-weave durasteel alloy on the upper arms, torso, neck, and upper back covered her from head to toe.

It was some spiffy armor she picked up off a Chagrian smuggler a month ago.

The sleeze ball had actually asked to watch her try it on, but it didn't take her long to convince him to reconsider. It got the job done, protecting her vital organs, and allowing quicker movement than traditional armor.

She also wore a short black hood that covered up the majority of her hair, and a black bandana covering up her face to the middle of her nose, helping to conceal her identity.

Two blaster pistols sat holstered on her lower back, strapped to her utility belt, along with a few thermal detonators and a stun baton secured to her right thigh, and throwing knives to the other.

Reaching into her belt she retrieved the commlink Balistik had given her.

She pondered over it thoughtfully for a moment.

Then quickly activated it and hurled it onto the roof of the compound.

"Hope you actually show." she whispered quietly to herself.

Not wasting another moment, she threw herself from the rooftop, grabbing onto the ledges along the compounds outer walls, to slow her descent, making her way to one of the large windows that lead into the main storage room.

She swung off a ledge kicking in the window, crashing through.

In mid-air she hurled several of her knives, knocking out a few of the hanging lights, casting a dark shadow on a large section of the compound.

Landing on a large crate , she heard the sounds of panicked shouting coming from all around the room.

The sound of shuffling footfalls echoing, as Kenan's men scrambled to find the source of the disturbance.

A startled guard rounded the corner of the crate adjacent to hers, aiming his blaster rifle around shakily, trying desperately to adjust his eyes to the sudden darkness.

Natalie quietly jumped down from the crate, landing a few feet away, sneaking towards him slowly as she pulled another knife from hip.

"Hey." she quickly whispered in a burst of speed, as she ran up behind him, slashing his throat open as he turned.

He gurgled violently, attempting to scream out for help.

Dropping his weapon as he crashed clumsily into a pile of boxes with a loud thump.

From the other side of a large wall of boxes and crates, blaster fire erupted in a panicked aimless volley towards her position.

Shattering and burning through the crates, shards of wooden shrapnel exploding towards her.

Forcing her to retreat to the crates closest to the wall, ducking to avoid the incoming fire.

A familiar voice chimed in on a loudspeaker during the confusion.

"What the hell is going on out there? Whatever it is, fix it fast or the boss will. And trust me, you don't want that."

"Kenan, no way I'm letting you live through the night." Natalie quietly said to herself.

The boss? Was his father really here? That would save her the trouble of having to find him herself.

If he was, him and Kenan would probably be in the control room, at the far end of the compound. It would take her time to get there, and knowing Kenan to be a talk big and run when it gets hard kind of guy, her window of opportunity was limited.

The torrent of blaster bolts suddenly stopped, the air eerily quiet, a thick layer of dust settling slowly to the ground.

She slowly moved along the wall to the right, opposite of where the majority of blaster fire originated, using the cover of darkness and hiding behind a variety of boxes and crates as she went.

Looking over the crate nearest to her, she saw a group of five guards slowly trekking down the partially illuminated aisle, towards her position.

She pulled a thermal detonator from her belt, gripping it tightly as she observed the guards.

They were wearing dark gray jumpsuits, with small black plate carriers, all armed with blaster rifles. Loosely following after one another, turning to look in every direction as they moved.

Natalie waited patiently for them to walk a few steps closer.

As they walked within 20 feet of her, she lobbed the grenade, quickly ducking back behind the boxes.

The grenade hit the closest man, striking him in the forehead, bouncing off a few inches back into the air, his eyes widening as the grenade exploded, instantly vaporizing three of them in a plume of blinding yellow light, sending the other two hurtling into crates on either side, followed by the violent sounds of cracking wood and bone alike.

Natalie smiled contently. "And here I thought this wasn't going to be easy."

A faint hum filled the warehouse floor, as a number of emergency lights flickered on, as if on cue.

She sighed. "Once again I spoke too soon."

"Over here!" shouted a guard to her left as he opened fire.

She slinked further down behind the crate, running around the other side, hurling herself behind some sheets of durasteel.

Natalie drew her blasters as several other guards began firing at her cover, violently jostling the metal plates.

She didn't quite know how to get out of this one, if she popped up to fire back , she'd be cut down, and if she sat here any longer, she'd be cut down.

"That's all you got?!" she exclaimed loudly, barely audible over the thrum of incoming bolts.

A large explosion shook the very foundation of the building, nearly knocking her over.

A whirlwind of light and heat scattered large chunks of rubble down from the ceiling, crushing several guards as they attempted to run for their lives.

A cluster of small metal spheres dropped in through the hole, scattering all over.

"Freeze!" shouted a scruffy sounding voice from behind her.

Without turning to look, she whipped around, quickly pulling the triggers on her blasters.

She froze, her eyes widening in disbelief.

Nothing came out.

A single Weequayan guard with a blaster pistol pointed at her head stood there, a malicious grin on his face. "You stupid bitch." he said mockingly, as he too squeezed his trigger.

Much to his surprise, nothing happened for him either.

Natalie rushed him, grabbing the top of his head as she brought her knee up into his jaw with a loud crack, knocking him back.

She jabbed hard into his throat with two well placed punches, crushing his air pipe, with a fleshy squelch.

He gasped for air as he fell to the ground, a look of terror and confusion in his eyes, squirming with his hands gripped around his throat.

So that's what the spheres do, some sort of blaster disruption field? She hadn't known such technology even existed, but she sure was glad that it did, it was going to make her night a whole lot easier.

The small army of remaining guards spotted her and attempted to fire at her.

Rapidly pulling the triggers on their weapons, angry and confused as to what was happening.

Natalie smiled underneath her bandana. "Having problems boys?" she said in a cold mocking tone.

"You just wait right there little girl, blasters or not, you're not getting out of here alive."

"You've got a mouth on you." she said as she casually walked up to them. "I'm going to save you for last."

A large dark figure made its way from the hole in the ceiling, lowering slowly into a landing as the roar of it's jetpack filled the room.

It was a man clad in black Mandalorian armor.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything, I'm sure you all were busy being criminal underlings, but your front...well ceiling was open, so i decided to stop in and say hi." said the figure,in a loud, amplified, unnatural voice.

The guards nearest him responded angrily, rushing to strike him.

The first was met with a vicious upward headbutt, blood squirting violently as he stumbled back and fell to the ground.

He intercepted the next goons punch, twisting his arm, and snapping it at the elbow.

She could hear the tearing of his ligaments and tendons from here.

Natalie made her move, climbing up the nearest stack of crates, jumping off the heads of encircling guards, landing next to the armor clad figure, whom she assumed was Balistik.

His helmeted head turned towards her as she landed next to him.

"Nice tights." he exclaimed humorously.

She smirked under her mask. "Nice helmet, by the way I love what you've done to the place."

The encircling guards rushed them all at once, forcing them to turn back to back.

A frenzy of punches, kicks, and screams raged in the center of the warehouse. She cut the hand off an attacking guard, spinning to kick him in the chest, sending him flying into two others.

Balistik blocked a blow, responding with a flurry of blows to the assailant's skull, knocking him back.

He leaned against her back. "Good looking, smart, and efficiently brutal, hell of a first date." he said teasingly.

"You haven't seen anything yet," she said as she blocked a man's roundhouse, kicking him in his other knee, shattering it. "It'll make a good story to tell our kids though."

Amidst the flurry of punches and kicks, he stopped for a split second to glance at her ass as she fought off two guards, then returned his focus on fighting. "Oh I'm looking forward to it."

She gave him a sideways look, smirking beneath her mask.

The torrent of guards rushed mindlessly into them, meeting only their deaths and pain.

Within minutes only a few guards remained, tired and terrified, realizing the futility of their fight, they stumbled over each other as they ran away in different directions.

The guard who had mouthed off at her, was the last to breakaway, she grabbed a crowbar from one of the dead men, and hurled it at the back of his legs.

He tripped, landing on his face hard, with the unmistakable sound of tearing cartilage.

Turning up on his side, he screamed while grabbing his nose.

Natalie always tried her best to keep her word.

She walked up to him, kneeling calmly next to him. "So what were you saying?"

"Fucking hell, nothing, I was saying nothing ." he paused. "Wait a second aren't you that bitch.."

Natalie raised an eyebrow in a scrutinizing manner.

"I mean, girl..lady, that beautiful lady that Kenan always hangs around with?" he raised a hand from his nose defensively.

"Maybe, maybe not."

The guards voice cracked with fear."Please just don't hurt me, I'm sorry."

"Shhh shhh, I know." she said as she grabbed his nose, wrenching it around, breaking it further out of place. He screamed uproariously, sobbing as he broke out into tears.

Natalie stood relaxing her stance, taking a deep satisfied breath as she looked around.

"Well, I'm glad that's over." she said as she walked up to lean on Balistik's shoulder, turning to stare into his visor.

He didn't even look tired, or even the least bit phased that a small army just tried to kill them 20 seconds ago, maybe it was the cold, dispassionate glare the helmet emitted.

"Well it's not over till we catch up with Vel." said Balistik, his helmet's vocoder made his voice sound as cold as his gaze.

She waved him forward. "After you."

"How thoughtful." he said as he leapt forward, racing towards the next room that led to the stairs, up to the control booth.

They kicked in the door, to a chair spinning around and the door across the room slamming shut.

"He's headed for the garage!" Natalie shouted.

"On it." Balistik shouted in response, as he jumped through the control room booth window and jetpacked back out the hole in the ceiling.

She sat there for a second confused. "Alright I guess I'll go this way." she said as she charged through the next door.

Natalie made her way to the roof to see Kenan hopping on one of the 15 speeder bikes in the bay, zooming out into traffic.

She hopped on the nearest one and took off after him, looking around for Balistik.

"I guess I've got this." she said excitedly as she weaved through traffic.

As she zoomed through the lanes after Kenan, speeders and speeder bikes began pouring in from the side roads, closing in on her.

"Should have known the goon squad would show up eventually."

The nearest 2 bikes pulled up behind her, opening fire.

She zig zagged and serpentined to throw off their aim. A few stray bolts hitting civilian speeders sending them spiraling out of control.

This was not going according to her plan, but it could be worse.

In spite of her, four more speeders poured in after her.

"Of course!" she shouted in frustration.

Then suddenly a familiar guttural roar came up from behind her, making her ears ring.

A large black speeder bike flew over her, hovering bristly to her left.

It was Balistik, or at least she assumed it was, riding the heavily armed monster of a speeder bike he had taken off on before.

She looked over to him. "Well it's about time, thought you forgot about me." she shouted playfully.

"After all the fun we've had tonight, I don't think that I'll be able to, I just decided to pick up a few toys and grab some friends of mine," he said as he pointed to her right.

She turned to see another Mandalorian in black armor land fashionably next to her while firing his blaster into the air.

"Woohooo!" exclaimed the figure at the top of his lungs.

She shook her head disapprovingly. "Let me take a wild guess who this is."

"What's a beauty like you doing running from homicidal maniacs on a night like this?" he said as he braked hard, not waiting for an answer, landing in the midst of their pursuers.

He turned to the speeder to his right. "No means no dickhead." he said as he aimed his wrist gauntlet, releasing an effusion of bright orange flame, the driver screaming as the bike flew into a building, exploding violently.

Balistik looked back. "We'll keep them off you, stay on him, we're setting a trap for him a few blocks ahead."

He then braked hard as well, leering next to a Rodian thug.

He jumped on the back of the Rodian's bike and snapped his neck, launching him up into an oncoming speeder, decapitating him, sending a fine red mist in the billowing wind.

Then he kicked off the bike, sending into another pursuing speeder, side flipping effortlessly back onto his own.

Natalie quickly turned to the sound of explosions and blaster fire behind her . "Glad their own my side." she said optimistically.

Kenan was only about 100m ahead of her now, shifting through oncoming traffic in an attempt to lose her. She weaved through the lane, trying her best to avoid the scattering vehicles.

Balistik said he was setting a trap, she just hope she'd recognize it when it happened.

She looked back to Balistik and his twitchy friend blasting away at Kenan's men, maneuvering wildly as they picked them off one by one.

"Good looking, smart, and efficiently brutal, hell of a first date."

They were pulling up on a sharp turn in either direction, and Kenan's guards started to pour out forming a wall of speeders 500m ahead.

They started to shoot wildly into traffic sending all civilian traffic into a frenzy in different directions, flying for their lives.

A panicked driver pushed her speeder into the side of a nearby building, her bike scraping against the wall with a loud screech, sparks spraying outward.

"Really?!" she shouted at the driver as he pulled away from her.

The control panel on her bike started to beep furiously as the bike began to lose speed.

"Come on, don't die on me now."

A fire sparked up, setting her bandana on fire.

She patted at it, as she ripped it off, and threw it to the wind.

A horn honked behind her.

"Need a lift ma'am?"

It was Balistik, holding his hand out cordially. Blaster bolts flying past them, nearly hitting them.

Natalie smiled as he helped her onto his bike.

Wrapping her arms tightly around him, and kissing the back of his helmet as they accelerated.

Her hood blew down from the ferocity of the wind.

She'd been on some quick speeders, but this thing put all of them to shame, making the other vehicles still scrambling about appear as if they were sitting still.

"What the hells on this thing, a starship engine?" she shouted over the roar of the engine to be heard.

"Basically yeah, if I shift into next gear, we'd be in the mid-rim. Now hold on, it's about to get rough."

"Now Aleena!" he shouted.

A large black tank of a speeder flew in from above, flanking the wall of speeders, obliterating several with a barrage of blaster fire and ramming through a few others.

Shrapnel sprayed all around, peppering the surrounding buildings in superheated shards of melting metal.

The speeders ramp slammed open, a massive man in Mandalorian armor roared animalistically as he tore into the various hostile speeders around him with a minigun.

Another Mandalorian popped their head up out of a turret on top of the speeder and began blasting away. The skylane erupting into chaos as a number of speeders deafeningly exploded into balls of orange light.

Natalie leaned her head closer to Balistik. "Is your entire crew gleefully homicidal?"

He cocked his head slightly to her. "If you knew how much money we make, you'd be full of glee too."

Kenan must've seen the futility of going forward, turning around sharply, heading back towards them.

Balistik turned to her again. "So do you want him dead or alive?"

"Alive, I need to''talk" to him."

"As you wish." said Balistik as he fired a single bolt from the blaster on his left wrist gauntlet, hitting Kenan's bike dead center.

Smoke and metal shards flung into the air, sending Kenan in a downward spiral.

He braked hard, standing up on the seat. "I'll be right back. He said as he launched himself off the bike, into a large cloud of smoke coming from Kenan's speeder bike.

She looked down for a sign of him reemerging.

The rumble of a jetpack rushed up through the smoke, Balistik carrying Kenan by his belt as he flew past her, landing on the building to her left.

Natalie hopped forward on the bike grabbing the handle bars, turning the bike to follow him.

She placed the bike down on the opposite side of the roof. The sound of blaster fire still ringing below them.

Kenan was busy freaking out, groveling on his back, as she walked up.

He looked up and saw her.

"No...Natalie, what's going on here, what is this?!" he frantically shouted.

Ignoring his panicked chattering, she kicked him across the head.

He winced in pain, slowly turning back to face her.

"What have I done to deserve this? I've treated you like a fucking princess, you ungrateful bitch!" he shouted, his voice cracking.

She reached down, unfastening her body suit, bringing it down to her waist, revealing the bottom of her stomach.

A line of bruises and scars were riddled about. "Some princess, I've put up with a lot of your shit, just to get to this moment."

Balistik lightly rubbed his hand along one of her larger scars, then turned to Kenan and punched him hard in the jaw, knocking teeth loose, drawing blood.

She looked at Balistik and then back at Kenan.

"And I just met him tonight, imagine what I'm going to do to you." said Natalie sneeringly, her eyes ablaze with hate as she refastened her body suit.

Balistik turned to her. "Even for fear for his life, I don't think this scum would tell us everything we need to know, we should take him back to Doctor Vandel, he has the tools and methods for extracting truthful information."

She looked back and forth between the two of them, stopping on Balistik.

"Okay fine, you've more than earned my trust tonight, let's take him to your friend."

Balistik turned to face off the roof. "Aleena bring the speeder around to my position."

The other Mandalorian she met tonight, pulled up on his speeder bike abruptly.

"Well that was effervescent." he exclaimed, hopping off of his bike.

He walked straight up to Kenan and punched him in the forehead.

Kenan recoiled in pain. "What the fuck was that for?"

The Mandalorian chuckled softly. "Ehh, I don't know."

The large black speeder she had seen decimating Kenan's men rumbled towards them, lowering slowly onto the roof, it's ramp smoothly setting down.

A blue twi'lek female walked out, wearing Mandalorian armor with no helmet, a large smile on her face. "Well that was good old fashion fun." she said as she approached.

The maniac Mandalorian walked past her to board the speeder, punching keys on his wrist pad, sending his speeder bike off into the sky.

The twi'lek looked her up and down. "Well don't just stand there, let's get out of here, before CSF inevitably shows up."


	10. The Apex

_**THE APEX**_

_**Balistik Tri**_

_**Apex Hangar**_

_**1313 Docking Bay**_

The artificial sun was beginning to rise in 1313, it's pale yellow light refracting off the towering spacescrapers. The crew and their guests landed their speeder inside the main hangar of the Apex. The boarding ramp opened crisply, landing gently on the hangar floor.

Feras walked out first, seemingly content with a good nights work.

"Home sweet home, nothing beats coming back here." said Feras.

Vex walked up next to him. "It's grown on me for sure, but I'd rather be in the jungles of Kashyyyk, hunting for pelts any day."

Feras shook his head disapprovingly, as he removed his helmet. "We really need to get you laid big guy."

They walked off, not waiting for the others.

Doctor Vandel was next to emerge, gleefully headed towards his lab, to prepare for his interrogation.

Lastly Aleena, Natalie, and Balistik walked out, with their new prisoner in tow, restrained with binders.

Balistik and Aleena walked beside each other, pushing Kenan forward, leading him towards Vandel's lab.

"So how was your night?" Balistik asked.

"Not nearly as fun as yours apparently." she said as she glanced back at Natalie, smiling.

"It's not like that, Aleena."

"Yeah, true. Not yet that is." she said as she walked ahead of him, out the hangar doors.

Natalie sped up to walk beside him.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, all things considered, tonight was...more than interesting."

He nodded. "Yeah, I can definitely see how you'd feel that way, now you're out of reasons to run across rooftops wearing tights."

She lightly punched him in the shoulder.

"I guess so."

Balistik chuckled to himself.

This had been one of the strangest nights of his ridiculous life. He'd just met this woman, and yet he felt like he'd known her his whole life, something about her felt...right.

They walked Kenan out of the hangar, into the hallway.

The hall was dimly lit, with dull white lights that ran along the walls and under the floor grates.

The walls themselves were a dark gray shade, with large metal doors and corridors on either side.

He lead them up to an especially large door at the end of the hall.

Balistik pressed a button on the control console, calling the elevator.

It arrived after only a few moments and they walked in as the doors opened.

"Level 3." said Balistik.

The elevator rumbled as it made it's ascent.

They made their way out of the elevator, walking through a door on their right as they exited.

Vex, Aleena, and Feras were talking off in the corner as they entered. Doctor Vandel was busy moving about the room manically, prepping his equipment.

The lab was large and dark, dimly lit by a medical lamp hanging above an operating table at the center of the room. Computer consoles, cabinets, and vats of chemicals ran along the sidewalls. Built into the furthest wall was a large industrial cryogenic chamber with clear transpara-steel windows, the cadavers of various species frozen in individual pods.

"Doc, you..uh..ready for our guest?" asked Balistik.

Vandel didn't stop rummaging through his lab.

"Almost, almost, you can sit him down on the operating table, I just need to find..ooh this." he said triumphantly, as grabbed a vial of a dark green fluid from a drawer. "Now I just need one more moment to prepare the formula."

Balistik laid Kenan down, removing the binders, restraining him with the leather straps on the table.

Natalie walked up beside him, her arms crossed, glaring down at Kenan as he struggled against the restraints.

He popped off his helmet and held it under his arm. "If you've got anything to tell us, I'd start now, before the good Doctor works his magic."

Kenan stared at him, a look of absolute terror in his eyes. "If I tell you everything, I'm dead, if I tell you nothing, I'm dead, so you see I'm fucked either way."

Something about the fear in his voice made Balistik uneasy, like he was afraid of something besides the impending interrogation, something worse.

"Yeah, you're probably right, maybe you're not getting out of this alive, you have no control over that." Balistik said as he paced around the table.

"But you do have control over how much pain you have to endure." Natalie interjected.

"Tell us about your father, where is he?"

"He's watching!" Kenan shouted. "He's always watching. And he's not..my father, please, just kill me."

Balistik stopped pacing, turning to look down at Kenan.

Maybe he'd hit him harder than he thought. The poor bastard was becoming delirious.

"What are you talking about?" Balistik asked.

Kenan closed his eyes, muttering, ignoring his question.

He turned to Natalie. "You got any idea what he's going on about?"

"This is new to me. Despite working with him for a few months..and fucking him for a few months, I know very little about him, all I know is that Beniko, which is seeming more and more like an alias, is my only lead."

Balistik sighed. "Yeah, it is, Doc?"

Doctor Vandel filled his syringe, walking up to Kenan. "This is Dehdra-chylicerine 3, a potent experimental truth serum. Outlawed in the Republic due to it's psychosis inducing properties. But luckily in our profession, we usually don't have to worry about our subjects well being afterwards."

Vandel inserted the syringe into Kenan's neck, screaming as the elongated needle penetrated further into his skin.

Kenan violently convulsed in reaction to the compound, foam dripping from his mouth.

Vandel sat the syringe on a medical cart next to the table. "Another few minutes and he'll level out, far more compliant than before."

"I just wish they'd drip less, stained my flight suit last time me and Bal brought in a patient." said Aleena.

"Interesting." said a strange, raspy, unexpected voice, coming from Kenan.

The group looked around at each other.

"What the fuck was that?" asked Feras in an confused manner.

Balistik ripped open Kenan's shirt.

He didn't see a bug or any kind of communication device.

Balistik reached up over the table and brought the scanner over Kenan.

The scanner revealed a variety of crude mechanical devices that were grafted throughout his torso, the only recognizable piece of machinery was a loud speaker placed above his heart.

Kenan's left eye began to twitch uncontrollably in a mechanical fashion. His body bloatting unnaturally, eyes bulging violently as he screamed, his skin tearing apart, bleeding profusely.

"..The hell? Everybody get down!" Balistik shouted as he grabbed Natalie, propelling them away from the operating table.

An ear piercing, concussive explosion ripped through the room, sending medical supplies and equipment flying in every direction.

They all ran out of the lab, violently coughing, covered in soot and the various evaporated fluids from Kenan's volatilized body. The hall was flashing with lights, and alarms blaring loudly, as the lab's fire suppression system activated.

"Okay really, what the fuck was that!?" screamed Feras, to no one in particular.

"Either Mr. Vel was wired with biochemical explosives, or that was the most severe allergic reaction in the history of medical science." Vandel said, loud enough to barely be heard over the alarms.

Balistik looked around at everyone.

They all seemed to be in one piece, no missing limbs or obvious signs of bleeding.

He hovered over his AIIP, shutting down the ships alarm system. "Everyone alright?"

They nodded slowly, trying to catch their breath.

Feras smacked his lips exaggeratedly. "Fierfek, I'm pretty sure I'm tasting Kenan right now. Not bad, never had trash before."

Vex laughed as he leaned against the wall. "No way, that was coincidental. Either someone knew we were coming, or someone really didn't want us to get any information out of him. "

"While his cybernetic implants were callously implanted, the devices themselves were quite advanced. There's definitely more going on here than we originally thought." said Vandel.

"You're telling me? I don't know about you guys, but I don't appreciate someone trying to kill me on my own ship, especially without even looking me in the eye first; Aleena get to the bridge, take us up out of here, upper atmosphere. The rest of you, get ready." he said as he replaced his helmet."

"Uhm, get ready for what exactly?" asked Feras.

"I have no idea, but secure all access points and head up to the bridge, I'll meet you there, I've got a bad feeling about this."

He started walking hurriedly down the hall.

"Hey wait up!"

He turned to see Natalie jogging up beside him. "What are you planning to do?" she asked.

"If the devices were as advanced as Vandel said, with presumably long range video and audio recording equipment, and the remote detonation of a very sophisticated explosive, it's safe to assume whoever was on the other side was also able track his position, which means anything could be headed our way. So I intend to move out of the way, and figure out exactly what the hell is going on here."

"And what exactly do you think is headed our way?"

"In short? Trouble."


	11. Trouble

_**TROUBLE**_

_**Aleena**_

_**Apex Bridge**_

_**Docking Bay**_

Aleena had been at the helm for five minutes now, arguing back and forth with the dockmaster over the comm.

"I understand there are procedures, but we're kind of in a rush."

The dock master spoke broken Basic, slurring his words in a sleazy off-world accent. "Lady, everybody's in a rush, if I cleared everyone who was in a hurry to be somewhere, you'd all crash into each other, and they'd probably dock my pay."

She was trying her best to keep calm. He was only doing his job after all, albeit with the social grace of a rabid gundark. But Balistik seemed sure something or someone was headed their way. Whether it was a fleet of pirate ships or some form of bombardment, she wasn't exactly sure, but having unknown variables in this line of work, was a sure way to get killed, and she wasn't sure how much time they had.

She sighed. "What's your name?"

"Well the name doesn't translate well to Basic, but my friends call me Bob, although you however may call me dockmaster, and wait your fucking turn like everybody else." he responded audaciously.

"Look, Bob, I'm going to dock my foot in your ass, if you don't open this door!" she shouted, slamming her hands down on the console.

"Threatening a public servant? Congratulations, you've just been pushed to the back of the queue. " said the dockmaster, in a smug tone as he disconnected from the call.

"Mother.."

Alarms and panels sprang to life, the long range sensor panel depicting a large, fast moving object headed directly for them.

"Fucker." she exclaimed in disbelief.

She fired up the repulsors, lifting the large vessel slowly up off the pad, the engines roaring loudly.

The comm chirped back on. "Lady, put that ship back on the ground, you've just been fined 800 credits, and the authorities are on their way."

"Yeah, well, what else is new?"

Aleena looked around, there were 8 pads spread out around the bay. All of them appearing to have ships in place, except one tucked away in the back corner.

She hovered over towards the empty pad, the hull of the ship creaking as it moved.

Several dockworkers and denizens ran out of the way screaming as the repulsors knocked over various crates and supplies, creating a tiny vortex of debris.

Powering up the upper turbo lasers, she fired a volley into the large metal doors above the vacant landing pad, blasting away huge chunks of metal, the doors caved in on themselves, crumbling to the ground.

"50,000 credits! You've done it now you crazy.."

Aleena disconnected the call, as she pulled the ship up through the door, scraping the the port hull on the jagged metal. "Sorry Bob."

Balistik sat down in the co-pilot seat, punching in commands on his screen.

"What's the situation?"

She turned to him, the rest of the crew and Natalie rushing to up to the cockpit.

"Just had a small disagreement with Bob."

"Who?" asked Balistik, seemingly confused.

"Nobody special. Oh also, we have what I believe to be a missile incoming."

Balistik shook his head. "Might want to start with that next time."

The sensor panel's beeping intensified, the unidentified object coming ever closer.

"Everyone strap in! I'm taking us up." Aleena shouted.

The ship surged forward, soaring up through the kilometers deep pit that led back to the surface. Narrowly avoiding the incoming speeders as they went.

"Picking up the object on the rear-cam, putting it on screen." Balistik said as he worked his console.

The upper right of the cockpit view port, changed to display the cameras footage.

A large metal ovoid powered towards them, a large stream of flame propelling it forward.

"Well it's definitely a missile, looks like a Quartek-Class Thermonuclear missile, a bit dated, but it'll do the job." said Balistik.

"Whoever wants us dead, isn't big on subtlety, nor do they care about mass casualties." said Vandel.

Balistik flipped a few switches. "And that makes for a dangerous enemy."

The Apex cleared the underground entrance, heading up into the sky, the setting sun casting a faint orange glow across the cityscape.

"Let's hope it's not space worthy." said Feras.

Within a matter of moments, the ship exited the atmosphere rumbling loudly as it did.

"It's still gaining on us, estimated time of impact, in 60 seconds!" shouted Aleena.

"Can you plot a jump out of here?" asked Natalie, in a concerned tone.

"Not fast enough. Not a safe one anyway."

"Pull up around Centax 2, and drop low, get the missile above us I'm gonna try and use the turbolasers." Balistik said.

"The chances of hitting a target that small and that fast with turbolasers within the next 50 seconds are pretty low, Bal." she said.

"I know, but if I can't shoot it down, get ready for a quick jump."

Aleena nodded.

This was certainly one of the more unique dilemmas they'd gotten themselves mixed up in. On one hand they could be instantly vaporized and die in a violent explosion. Or they could jump into a moon, and die in a violent explosion. She couldn't decide which was worse.

35 seconds.

Balistik blasted away towards the missile with the Apex's turbolasers, the bright streaks bathing the immediate void in a colorful display of crimson red. The targeting system unable to pinpoint the comparatively small object as they maneuvered.

15 seconds.

"I've got a half decent jump planned, but the calculations are incomplete."

"Just do it!" shouted Vex.

A wave of orange light erupted in the rear camera, scrambling the footage into a gray haze. The power system of the Apex surging from the massive electromagnetic pulse given off by the detonation. The bridges lights and consoles flickering rapidly, as the wave of atomic energy etched closer.

"Well, maybe hitting wasn't such a good idea, you ready?" asked Balistik.

"Fierfek, system's rebooting, just a few more seconds." she said as she worked the console in a well practiced fashion.

10 seconds. She was cutting it close.

It was nearly upon them, the edges of the explosion seemingly grasping out for the Apex like the giant hand of an angry spirit.

"5..4..3..2..1!" Aleena pulled back a large lever to her right, the stars warping into bright blue lines as the ship launched forward into hyperspace.


	12. More Trouble

_**MORE TROUBLE **_

_**Feras Oset**_

_**Apex Bridge**_

_**Somewhere in Space**_

The ship violently vibrated as it exited hyperspace, several of the bridges lights continued to flicker. The vessel slowly lurching to a halt as the emergency thrusters slowed their momentum.

A large moon sat in their path, its mass filling the entirety of the Apex's main viewport.

Feras sat gripping his seat tightly. "Well that was our usual version of success, a small explosion, followed by a larger explosion, good job team."

"Well, all things considered, at least we didn't hit that moon. You're welcome." said Aleena.

"Oh yeah, thanks for that." he said with a jocular tone.

He was looking forward to thanking this Beniko Vel personally. They had only known he'd existed for maybe a day and he'd already nearly succeeded in killing them twice. In the years since he and Balistik had taken up mercenary work, he'd held a few grudges, all short term, he usually caught up to them as quickly as he could, almost a professional courtesy of sorts. He'd hoped this one would be the same.

Balistik spun around in his chair. "Well on to the next order business, let's get in contact with Banan. See where we can meet up." he said as he rose from his chair, walking towards the holo-projector.

"Why? With Kenan dead, there's no way I'll find out anything, and he certainly isn't going to tell me anything, he never has." said Natalie.

"We're in the same boat on that part, Banan apparently specializes in long term parental secrets. But something about him seems different, like something changed. When's the last time you spoke with him?"

"A few months ago, he called me, rambling on, saying he's sorry. But even on the verge of tears, looking me dead in my eyes, he still refused to tell me."

Feras didn't know Banan as well as Balistik or Natalie. But from his own experiences, he could tell he was an honorable man, and an honorable man wouldn't keep such things from the people that matter the most to him without good reason. Maybe their parents were killed together? Or maybe Banan was Balistik's father this whole time and only their mother was missing? The timelines were too close, and Banan's attitude towards them too similar for it to be coincidence.

Feras jumped up suddenly from his chair, accidentally smacking Vex in the head as he stood. "Well, then maybe, just maybe, your parents deaths and/or disappearances, are connected in some way. You said that Vel is the only lead that you have right?"

Natalie shook her head slowly. "Yeah."

A look of total bewilderment on her face.

"And Vel just launched a nuclear missile at us casually, from the fucking capital of all places without even a hint of hesitation?" Feras asked, pointing at Balistik.

"Maybe, you've got something. Banan described Vel as a crime lord, a gun runner, a drug peddler. How many criminals, even the powerful ones do you know, that have access to that kind of hardware?" asked Balistik.

"None that I've ever heard of, not even the Hutts or Black Sun, that's a mil-grade piece of explosive candy, that would be kept in the most secure, impenetrable places imaginable." answered Aleena.

"And back to the Banan situation. How long has your mother been dead?" Feras asked solemnly.

Natalie hung her head low. "All my life, twenty plus years, give or take."

"If Beniko Vel was someone touchable, a gangster, politician, hell the freaking Chancellor." Feras voice rose with excitement. "Banan would've hunted him down years ago. He's one of the toughest bastards I know. But he didn't or he couldn't, he had 20 years to come up with a plan, maybe he's afraid, and someone like him isn't afraid without a good reason." he said.

The bridge sat there a moment in silence, taking in his words.

"Y'know, that's the most sense you've made in years." said Balistik.

Vandel crossed his arms. "Well like I said, maybe we've all stumbled onto something a lot bigger than we thought, or at least more dangerous."

Balistik appeared to consider their speculation deeply.

Feras was just trying to put two and two together as best he could, he only had so much to go off of at the moment. But even the possibility appeared to weigh heavy on the crew.

"Well let's try and get in contact with Banan." said Balistik fiddling with the holo-projector as he spoke. "Odd."

"What is it? Feras asked.

"Pinging Banan's frequency is sending out an automated message with coordinates. Leading back to Coruscant, not too far from where we were."

"NK 15478 56604?" asked Natalie as she stood.

Balistik pulled the holo-prompt around to face the group. "You know it?"

"More than I'd like to, it's home."

They sat there silently for a moment.

"Well, let's go, get this job done." Vex snarled.

"Alright, Aleena take us back, quick as the old girl can." said Balistik.

They calculated the jump and headed back to Coruscant, landing at a dock not too far from the coordinates. Flying the DX-12 to a large dura-brick wall, at the end of a long, seemingly abandoned alleyway.

Feras looked up and around the area as he exited the speeder, training his rifle at the fire escapes and ledges above them. One could never be too careful.

"Where's the entrance?" he asked.

"Or is this some form of hologram?"

"No, the wall is the front door, you just gotta know how to open it." said Natalie as she pressed several bricks in a memorized fashion.

The wall shuddered, lowering slowly, a faint dust from the brick fell upon them as it moved.

Several rodents scurried about in the opposite direction as it screeched to a halt.

Another large door sat behind it, made of a thick durasteel, with large metal clasps securing it to the wall.

"Sheesh, Banan sure is paranoid." Aleena remarked as she wiped the dust off of her visor.

"Yeah, well with what we've seen of his enemies, he has every reason to be." said Balistik as he walked up to the doors security console, motioning Natalie forward.

She punched in a long security cypher and the door rolled to the side quickly, with a loud metallic click. "Follow me."

Her and Balistik walked ahead of him.

"Vex, Vandel, watch the speeder and our six. Doesn't take all of us to talk to him." said Feras, turning to walk inside the door, with Aleena following closely behind him.

The inside of the bunker was dark and dusty, more spacious than the outside appeared. Crates of field rations and spare parts lay all around them.

Feras walked slowly, surveying every detail, wary of any traps or surprises Banan may have in place. Him and Natalie clearly hadn't used it too recently, there was too much dust, which meant maintenance on the security system was probably lax. And he didn't want to be the poor bastard that died to a malfunctioning electro-snare.

One by one they made their way down a lengthy hallway, passing barren, stripped down rooms, littered with various electronics and droid parts.

He stopped at the doorway to his left. A column of perfectly horizontal notches ran up the door frame a ¼ of the way down, all the way up to a few inches below his brow. Natalie's name and a different year was scratched over each line.

"Look at this." he whispered to Aleena as she walked up behind him. "Imagine living here for so long, it's actually kind of sad."

Aleena ran her gloved hand across one of the middle lines. "Yeah it is, but something tells me our pity, is the last thing she wants."

He nodded and continued walking, increasing his pace to catch up to the others.

Balistik and Natalie reached a doorway at the end of the hall.

"Noo!" cried out Natalie.

She rushed into the door, quickly followed by Balistik.

He and Aleena sprinted through the door unanticipatedly stopping as they arrived. The room was larger than the others, with a plethora of smashed security monitors, casting a dull red hue across the room.

By the main console, slumped in a large chair was Banan dressed in his armor, with two blaster bolt holes in his head, smoke still settling from the wounds, his helmet in his lap.

"Noo!" Natalie screamed again, clutching his lifeless body in her arms, tears pouring down her face, the droplets lightly tapping on the surface of Banan's chest plates.

Balistik was kneeling beside her, leaning his buy'ce against Banan's forehead, reciting a prayer in Mando'a.

Feras lowered his head and tightened his grip on his blaster rifle. The stinging pain of looking into his lifeless eyes hurt. This was undoubtedly a message from Beniko, either warning them to back off or warning them that they were next on the menu. Feras didn't care which, he was going to fill Vel's lungs with fire and reduce him to ashes. Messing with a man's family was dangerous, messing with a Mandalorian family was suicide.

Natalie had slumped down, resting her head on Balistik's shoulder, as he sat facing him and Aleena. A look of solemn rage burning through his visor.

No one said a word.

He understood perfectly, turning to walk back out into the hallway, he began setting up a virtual crime scene grid using his helmets heads up display. The interface perfectly aligning itself with the floor, walls, and the various objects of significant size or forensic importance; highlighting the suspected composition of unknown substances settled across the ground.

Not much discernable DNA evidence lead in or out from the door, but he'd need to get a record of Banan and Natalie's DNA for a proper investigation. On the ground in front of him, he saw the thermal signature of their footsteps, glowing a bright orange hue. He counted six sets of footsteps. Himself, Natalie, Bal, Aleena, Banan, and their mysterious assassin.

Feras ran a full thermal image of his immediate area, everything was cold, except an old computer terminal tucked away in the corner of the room to his left, it still had thermal prints on the keyboard. He walked over to it, pressing a key to bring the screen online, a prompt appeared stating that all the drives had been wiped.

"Great." he frustratingly exclaimed to himself.

Whoever did this, wanted more than to just kill Banan. And whatever they were after, they may have found it already.

Suddenly his 360 degree sensors detected a small metal object behind him, highlighting it's small frame. It appeared to be some form of datachip, but the configuration was foreign and the interface completely unrecognizable.

_Interesting_. He thought, as he grabbed it, flipping the chip flourishly in between his fingers.

He walked back down to the room where the others were at. Kneeling down beside Balistik and Natalie, she had stopped crying and just sat there embracing Balistik as if they hadn't just met six hours ago.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I looked around, and found that a nearby console had been accessed and wiped, and I found this." he said as he held up the chip.

Natalie slowly grabbed it from his hand. "I've never seen this before. I've never seen anything like it before actually." she said as she handed it to Balistik.

"Me either, and I often consider myself a connoisseur of tech. But the device is entirely foreign to me, I also want to grab that console with us when we go, could probably restore some of its drives." Feras said.

Balistik looked over it intently, as he helped Natalie up. "Well, I figure finding out how to access it's contents is our second order of business, first...let's get Banan out of here, get him in what's left of Vandel's morgue. And find a proper place on Mandalore to..put him to rest." his voice filled with pain.

They started to walk towards the door, Balistik and Feras respectfully carrying Banan's body, heads still hung low.

Natalie stopped short of the door frame, her voice cracking."Wait, wait, I truly have nothing now, but I want to kill whoever did this, Beniko or otherwise. And I want you to train me to be a Mandalorian."

Balistik, Feras, and Aleena looked back and forth between each other, exchanging inquisitive glances.

"Are you sure?" asked Aleena, walking up to Natalie, her cold visor studying her up and down.

"It's the only way I'll be able to take out whoever did this." she said, her teary eyes ablaze with fury.

"It is a commitment not easily fulfilled or broken, the training is hard, and in its entirety will take years to complete, you will bleed, you will break, and you may even die." said Feras still supporting Banan's body.

Natalie wiped the last of her tears from her eyes, her face turning deadpan and focused.

"I'd be disappointed otherwise."


	13. Gra'Tua Cuun

_**GRA'TUA CUUN**_

_**Balistik Tri**_

_**The Apex**_

_**In orbit around Coruscant**_

"Make sure you take care of him Doc." said Balistik, sealing the cryo chamber door firmly into place.

"I will, Bal, trust me. I know what he meant you." Doctor Vandel said as he ran his gloved hand through his thick gray hair.

He'd rushed Banan's body here as soon as they got on board. Seeing his oldest friend and mentor like this stung like an untreated blaster wound. Banan sat upright in the pod, his eyes were closed, yet he could still feel them boring into soul.

"Goodbye old friend." he said, gently touching the glass separating them.

And with Banan died the chance of ever knowing the truth. He hated to think of it right now, he wasn't even frozen yet, but the gnawing thought wouldn't give him a seconds rest.

"I'm going to go get Natalie settled in, if you want to get started on..the autopsy, I'd appreciate it."

"Sure thing boss, I'll let you know when I'm done."

"Thanks Vandel."

He made his way down to the hangar where Natalie had stored all of her belongings from her apartment. His head low, his heart

heavy with grief and rage.

The inner hangar doors quickly snapped open as he approached. Natalie was over by one of the speeders, busily organizing her possessions onto a repulsor cart.

"Need a hand?" he asked.

She looked up at him, with her signature stoic, expressionless glare.

"No, thanks, I got it."

He removed his helmet and held it under his arm. "Look I know, it's been maybe 7 hours since we've met, and we obviously aren't the most emotional of people, but..if you want to talk about it. I'm here."

She didn't stop moving her belongings onto the cart. "Talk about what?"

"This, what happened today?"

"Yeah, well I'm sure he had it coming for a long time."

"Don't speak ill of the dead. They can't defend themselves. And that man deserved better than this."

"Don't get me wrong, I loved him,but I barely know that man!" she raised her voice a little as she stacked the last box.

"But apparently you do, my own father, and he'd rather spend his days out fighting with you, then doing anything with me, let alone raising me."

Balistik sat at the end of the cart and looked down at the floor. She was right, he couldn't argue with that, Banan may have had his reasons, and they may have been good in intent. But he did fail as a father, he failed her.

Deep down, Balistik would rather have that than no father at all. Wyat Oset did all he could to raise him, and he appreciated every effort that man put into raising a child that wasn't his own. But it just wasn't the same.

He walked up to her, his expression no longer sympathetic, but resolute.

"You're right." He paused. "But had he not done what he did, perhaps you would've been dead a long time ago. His enemies would've tracked him there years ago and slit your throat in your sleep. I know it sucks, and I know it's unfair. But that man died down there, with every fiber of his being concerned about your safety. He would've taken his own life if it meant saving yours. I know that, because he'd do it for me. And I know without a doubt, he would've damn well done it for you. Even if it didn't seem so, I know that you meant everything to him."

A single tear fell from his hardened face. "So please, don't be angry at him. Be angry at Vel. He's the reason your life is messed up, he may have been the one to kill your mother, he's definitely the reason Banan's dead, and we're gonna hunt him down and carve out his lungs. The question is how badly do you want him dead?"

She turned away, contemplating. "Very much, so when do we start?" she asked, her voice softening.

"Good. We'll start your training after the funeral. Should reach Mandalore in two days. Let me show you to your room."

He led her out of the hangar, up to the 3rd level where the crew quarters were located. Natalie remained silent as she pushed the cart along, seemingly deep in thought.

His life had been irrevocably changed today, he'd lost one Corsus and gained another. He had no doubt that she could complete the training, she already had the advantage of Mandalorian heritage, and seemed physically capable of handling the stress of it, but it just felt different. He trained Aleena, Vex, and Vandel, but there was something about Natalie, that he could just tell he was about to have his hands full.

They walked up to the room, Balistik accessing the door panel, punching in a code.

"I'll give you the code for the door, then show you how to generate your own code for privacy. Not that anyone onboard is so intrusive, but still." he then went into the room, the lighting turning on as they walked in.

It was a little smaller than his cabin, but had the same configuration, and there was an extra dresser tucked away in the corner, with folded sheets laying on top of it. Banan's helmet rested on the bed.

Natalie pushed the cart through, taking in the details of her new room. "Nicer than I thought it would be."

Balistik smiled. "You'll find the Apex is full of surprises. The shower is sonic based, plenty of deodorizing powder in there. The mess is a few doors over to the right, help yourself, although don't open the fridge by the viewport, that's where Vex keeps his food, and I promise it'll ruin your appetite. There's a gym down on the 2nd deck, has everything a human body would need to build up muscle and endurance. My room is all the way down past the mess, if you have any questions or need help with something." he started for the door.

"Wait." said Natalie.

He turned around in the doorframe. "Yeah?"

She walked up to him. "Thanks, you didn't have to do this."

He smiled. "It was the only thing to do."

She embraced him, holding him tightly, as if she let go of him, she'd topple over. "Promise me when we find him, that I get to kill him."

He held her just as tightly. "I promise. Get some food and some rest. I'll be on the bridge, I'll get you when we arrive."

She let go and nodded her head, slowly.

"Alright, I'll try."

Balistik smiled again, closing the door swiftly in between them. He made his way to the bridge holding his helmet tightly in hand.

(2 days later on Mandalore)

They had landed out in the abandoned wastes of The White Desert, outside of Sundari.

Mandalore's bright orange sun baking the desert sand.

The crew sat in a circle around Banan's pyre, tightly holding each others hands, with their helmets at their feet, Natalie using Banan's for the ceremony. Several lit torches adorned the circle around them. The Apex's large frame casting a large shadow over them.

As with Mandalorian tradition, they kept his body in his armor and adorned him with various ritual tattoos, intended to allow him true peace in death.

Balistik let go of Aleena and Vex's hands, and grabbed one of the torches, holding it ceremoniously in front of himself.

"We're about to start the kote kyr'am, repeat after me. Motir ca'tra nau tracinya.

Gra'tua cuun hett su dralshy'a. Taung!"

(Those who stand before us light the night sky in flame.

Our vengeance burns brighter still. Taung!)

The group continued on reciting the chant, Natalie trying her best to keep up with the foreign language.

Balistik proceeded with the chant. "Bal kote, darasuum kote, Jorso'ran kando a tome.

Sa kyr'am nau tracyn kad, Vode an."

(And glory, eternal glory, We shall bear its weight together. Forged like the saber in the fires of death, Brothers All.)

Finishing the chant, bowing their heads, they stood there in silence.

He aimed the torch and ran it along the makeshift pyre, the various blankets and wooden planks slowly giving the flames life.

Balistik wished this day had never came, at least so soon, and under these circumstances. Banan wasn't a perfect man, but he was a good man. He was kind and patient, and had taught him everything he knew. He was the second father he had lost, but the first and only friend he'd lost.

The flames had spread to the entirety of the pyre, a large plume of smoke went higher and higher into the sky.

He put the torch out in the sand, and walked back to grab their hands again.

After a few more minutes of burning, the fire died out, leaving the pyre a blackened, burned husk covered in ash.

Balistik grabbed a large urn from behind him and walked over to Natalie. "Here, gather him in this, we'll take him up in the Apex, and you can scatter his ashes into the wind from the auxiliary landing ramp. He would've wanted to rest with the world that meant so much to him."

Natalie nodded silently, and began to gently brush Banan's ashes into the urn, tears running down her face.

"You guys want to get the ship ready to take off?" he asked the rest of the crew.

Nodding slowly as they made their way back to the ship.

Feras grabbed his shoulder. "We're going to probably have to condense her training." he nodded in Natalie's direction. "If were going to go for Vel. I don't want to wait years to string him up."

Balistik nodded. "We can merely work upon improving her skills, she's already a pretty good shot. So that just leaves combat training, physical fitness, languages, explosives, and survival training. We'll sort of play it by ear, teach her the things she needs to know now, and then just incorporate Mando'a traditions as we go." he said in a hushed tone.

Feras let go of his shoulder and started to walk again. "Don't forget she's going to need to know how to work as a team and some armor."

"I didn't." he said as he turned back to Natalie.

She was just finishing collecting Banan's remains.

He walked up to her, helmet in hand. "You ready?"

Natalie stood up, clutching the urn close to her heart, tears slowly running off her cheeks, she wiped at them. "Yeah, yeah I'm ready."

He leaned in towards her, placing his hands on the urn."Let them run, it's one of the ways pain chooses to leave the body, and in the days that are soon to come, there won't be any room for tears, so allow yourself the moment.

Because when we get airborne, the Kaust'La will begin, it's not a commitment easily broken. There aren't any half-trained Mandalorians. You're either one or you're not."

She rested her head on his chin slowly and then looked up into his eyes. "I won't fail, I know why I'm doing this." she said as she tightly gripped the urn.

"I know. Your father will be proud of you, he's watching over you from the grave. It's time to start our vengeance, our Gra'tua Cuun."


End file.
